A prehistoric treasure at Meteora
The Cave of Theopetra, just 5 km away from Meteora ranks among the most important archeological prehistoric sites of Greece! Over the past decades, it has revealed many prehistoric findings from many different periods of our prehistory. Stone tools, burials, animal remains, the oldest known man-made structure, are only a few of them! This unique cave with its great location, its superb access to fresh clean water, and its vantage point, served as a magnet for early inhabitants who could recognize from miles away from such key advantages. Early prehistoric settlers used it continuously for more than 130.000 years.
Its uniqueness from an archeological perspective is that it contains, within a single site, the records of two greatly significant cultural transitions: The replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans, and the later transition from hunter-gathering to farming after the end of the last Ice Age. The cave consists of an immense 500 square meter rectangular chamber at the foot of a limestone hill, which rises to the northeast above the village of Theopetra, with a very big entrance 17m wide by three meters high.
It lies at the foot of the Chasia mountain range, which forms the natural boundary between Thessaly and Macedonia prefectures, while the Lithaios River, a tributary of the Pineios River, flows in front of the cave. The small Lithaios River flowing literally on the doorsteps of the cave meant that cave dwellers had always easy access to fresh, clean water without the need to cover daily long distances.
Continues human presence in Theopetra Cave
Excavations, which have been systematically carried out, have unearthed light geological deposits dating to the Pleistocene and Holocene periods as well as anthropogenic deposits, indicating that the cave had been continuously inhabited during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic periods.
Specimens found, such as coal and human bones, prove that the cave was occupied from about 135,000 BC to 4000 BC and that temporary use continued during the Bronze Age and historic times up to 1955. Even after that, the cave was used occasionally by shepherds to shelter their herds right up until the excavations began. It is the first time that cave-dwelling was recorded in Thessaly during the Palaeolithic period. The latest cave findings published in 2012 by the lead scientist and her team responsible for the excavations, Paleoanthropologist Dr. Ekaterini (Nina) Kyparissi-Apostolika, has raised the time records of cave’s dwelling up to 135.000 BC.
Oldest human footprints in Europe
Excavations brought to light three human footprints which have been dated to approximately 135,000 years ago. The find consists of four human footprints in a row, from four individuals believed to have been children aged 2 to 7. Those children must have walked on the remained ashes of a fire that later in time became petrified thus allowing footprints to be preserved till the present day. The stratigraphic sequence of Theopetra cave extends through three cold periods: during the Middle era circa 25,000 BC, during the Upper Palaeolithic, and during the final Upper Palaeolithic period (end of the Pleistocene era).
The excavations and study of the finds at Theopetra have been conducted since 1987 by the scientific research group of the department of Paleoanthropology-Speleology, as we have already mentioned earlier under the direction of Dr. Ekaterini (Nina) Kyparissi-Apostolika. Objects discovered in the cave include stone tools of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, as well as Neolithic pottery, bone and shell objects, skeletons from 15000, 9000, and 8000 BC, and traces of plants and seeds that reveal dietary habits.
Back in 2010, it was announced that according to an optical dating test known as Optically Stimulated Luminescence, that performed to date a recently excavated stonewall and applied on quartz grains nested within the stones, it surprisingly revealed the oldest known man-made structure. The 23,000-year-old stone wall in front of Theopetra cave probably built to protect its residents from cold winds at the height of the last ice age, is the oldest known example of a man-made structure!
Theopetra Cave is definitely a site nearby Meteora worth visiting, not to be missed by anyone!
A massive stone wall. 21,000 bc. How is it overlooked that they created this structure of several ton stones when they supposedly barely had tools? Hmmm, not sure how but I’m not just going to accept that prehistoric man just magically figured it out.
Not magically, They were human beings (homo sapien). They were just plain smart and inventive and figured out a way to do it. In other words, just like us, but at the beginning of our emergence as THE primary hominid on this planet. They should not be denigrated. If we do so, then we would be denigrating who we humans are now.
That’s an excellent reply. When anyone says that our ancient ancestors could not build the great pyramids or travel long distances around the earth or invent amazing tools or build amazing things, without the help of aliens or without magic, it really does insult human potential, creativity and ingenuity of the past and in the present.
Its a fact that we can’t even build alot of the structures from the past
But if civilization was around earlier than the sumerians why are they considered the first civilization? We ignore truth to pad the egos of scientists who would do anything to not be proven wrong considering their entire being is based on their wrong opinions.
I agree our ancestors were not stupid, we have lost ancient technology if anything to argue or to be disappointed about. The Greece were very smart people
Culture was animistic, hunter gather Matrifocal Sun as female not male.
Men were warriors of the Goddess.
And this is what humans have become, smh.
Maybe, just maybe we lost that particular knowledge because it became irrelevant. New building materials and techniques would have made monolithic construction a terrible choice. Don’t get me wrong, the trilithon stones are one of the most amazing things man ever built. If we were trying to accomplish a foundation that large today there are much cheaper, less labor intensive, quicker, etc.. ways to do it. It’s ridiculous to say that we can’t figure out how to build that way today. The current largest shipping crane can lift 10,000 tons. More than 10× the weight of a trilithon stone. Even the largest 15 ton pyramid stone could be easily moved by an average construction crane.