The Road Through Sicevo

New excavations are raising questions about early humans in Pleistocene period Europe.

...In Sicevo (pronounced Sichevo) and Jelasnica (Yelashnitza) gorges alone, we have over the last 6 years identified and (to an extent) excavated four caves with definite Pleistocene remains and one open air site that was most likely used for raw material quarrying. When all of the sites in the region are taken together, the sequence possibly spreads over most of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene and covers the important time when Upper Paleolithic stone tool industries, usually associated with early modern humans, move into Europe to replace the Mousterian.

One of these sites has produced the first uncontestable Pleistocene hominin specimen from the region in 2008, and that is when Professor Mirjana Roksandic joined the field excavation as a paleoanthropologist. This specimen is a partial mandible found in the Pleistocene deposits of Mala Balanica (Balanitza) cave, about 1.5 meters below the Middle Paleolithic Mousterian artifacts. The site, as well as an adjoining larger cave and a number of other caves...

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