Palæolithic Finds in Bulgaria

Abstract

DR. DOROTHY GARROD'S account of her recent excavation of the cave of Batcho Kiro, near Drevono, in Bulgaria, given before the Society of Antiquaries of London on December 8, adds a link of no little importance to the chain of evidence of the distribution of cultures of the later periods of the palæolithic age in eastern Europe and adjacent regions. Dr. Garrod's excavations were carried out in the summer of 1938, when she had the assistance of Mr. James Gaul and Mr. Bruce Howe of Harvard University, by permission of the Bulgarian Government and with the cooperation of the National Museum of Sophia. The cave is very large with an intricate system of corridors running at least a kilometre into the rock. Flint implements had already been discovered here in association with bones of the cave bear by a local engineer. The present excavations were confined in the main to the principal chamber ; and here for the first time in Bulgaria a stratified sequence of palæolithic deposits has been found. At the bottom of the section was a Mousterian level, in which the implements were made chiefly from pebbles of volcanic rock from a stream near by. Above this level were layers of deposits belonging to the Upper Palæolithic, in which the industries were more or less of Aurignacian type, and the implements were made of flint. They were associated with animal bones, among which were cave bear, cave hyena, and in the lowest levels woolly rhinoceros. These levels, corresponding to others of the same kind in other parts of Europe, are to be assigned to the last stage of the Quaternary Ice Age.