Brežđe () is a village in the

Mionica Mionica ( sr-cyr, Мионица, ) is a town and municipality located in the Kolubara District of western Serbia. , the population of the town is 1,590, while population of the municipality is 12,061 inhabitants. Geography The township of Mionic ...

municipality,

Kolubara District The Kolubara District (, ) is one of administrative districts of Serbia. It occupies the central part of western Serbia. According to the 2022 census, it has a population of 154,497 inhabitants. The administrative center of the Kolubara Distric ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Šalitrena Cave

Šalitrena Cave Šalitrena Cave () is located in the boundaries of the atar municipality Brežđe, about 6 km from Mionica and 3 km upstream from the Ribnica Monastery and Ribnica Cave. It is the richest Paleolithic find of the central and west Balkan Peninsula, ...

() is located in the village area, in the gorge of the Ribnica river. The name means "

Saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate ...

Cave" in Serbian. It is the richest

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

find of the central and west

Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with 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 throug ...

, a valuable source on the material culture and spiritual life of the Paleolithic humans. The cave is also the only

Gravettian The Gravettian is an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

find in the west Balkans and one of the richest and most important finds of the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

in the

Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a geographical sub-region of Europe, consisting primarily of the region of the Balkans, as well as adjacent regions and Archipelago, archipelagos. There are overlapping and conflicting definitions of t ...

. A technological and typological analysis of the discovered materials, numerous stone artifacts and fauna remnants, and the subsequent

accelerator mass spectrometry Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the different methods of mass spectrometry is its ability t ...

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 P ...

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

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...

(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