Kozarnika or Peshtera Kozarnika is a cave in northwestern Bulgaria that was used as a hunters’ shelter as early as the Lower Paleolithic. It marks an older route of early human migration from Africa to Europe via the Balkans, prior to the currently suggested route across Gibraltar. The cave probably keeps the earliest evidence of human symbolic behaviour and the earliest European Gravetteflint assemblages came to light here. Kozarnika cave is located from the town of Belogradchik in northwestern Bulgaria, on the northern slopes of the Balkan Mountains, close to the Danubian Plain. It is opened to the south, at above the valley. With its length of, the cave is among the small-sized in the Belogradchick karst region. Studies over the course of two decades uncovered 21 geological layers there, containing archaeological complexes of Early Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, Early Upper Paleolithic, a sequence of an original Paleolithic bladelets industry with backed pieces that scholars called Kozarnikian, Early Neolithic, Late Copper Age, Late Bronze Age, Medieval and Late medieval periods. The Kozarnika cave project started in 1984. Since 1996, it has been headed by Dr. Prof. Nikolay Sirakov and Dr. Jean-Luc Guadelli. In the ground layers, dated to 1.6–1.4 million BP, archaeologists have discovered a human molar tooth, lower palaeolithic assemblages that belong to a core-and-flake non-Acheulian industry, and incised bones that may be the earliest example of human symbolic behaviour. The findings from Middle Paleolithic layers, rather bifacial points, dating from 300,000–50,000 BP prove presence of hunters’ groups possibly of Homo neanderthalensis. Upper Paleolithic layers consist flint assemblages from the earliest European Gravette complex dating from 43,000 up to 39,000 BP belonging to Homo sapiens. In fieldwork since 2015, researchers have started to investigate the nature and impact paleo-human presence had on local fauna in order to establish a more accurate chronology of the occupation periods. In this context the research team also attempts to get a better understanding on the relationship between the Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption and its consequences on human occupation in the Kozarnika cave.
