Brežđe ( sr, Брежђе) is a village in the Mionica municipality, Kolubara District in Serbia.

Šalitrena Cave

Šalitrena Cave ( sr, Шалитрена пећина, Šalitrena pećina) is located in the village area, in the gorge of the Ribnica river. The name means " Saltpeter Cave" in Serbian. It is the richest

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

find of the central and west

Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

, a valuable source on the material culture and spiritual life of the Paleolithic humans. The cave is also the only Gravettian find in the west Balkans and one of the richest and most important finds of the Upper Paleolithic in the Southeast Europe. A technological and typological analysis of the discovered materials, numerous stone artifacts and fauna remnants, and the subsequent accelerator mass spectrometry method, established that the cave was already inhabited in the

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

, 38,000 years ago. Materials discovered in the chronologically younger layers belong to the major Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe,

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where t ...

(31,000 years ago) and Gravettian (25,000 years ago). A cave was still used for dwelling by the local population in the 4th century and then again from 12th to 15th century.

References

File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 10.jpg, Brežđe - panorama File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 17.jpg, Brežđe - panorama File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 2.jpg, Brežđe - panorama File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 6.jpg, Brežđe - panorama File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 7.jpg, Brežđe - panorama File:Brežđe - opština Mionica - zapadna Srbija - panorama 8.jpg, Brežđe - panorama Populated places in Kolubara District Caves of Serbia Archaeological sites in Serbia Paleolithic Protected areas of Serbia {{KolubaraRS-geo-stub