The Globoska Pec Cave, A New Paleonthological And Paleolithic Site On The Karst Edge - Results Of The Experimental Trial Excavation

A preliminary examination of sediments from a recently identified Globoska pec cave located between the villages of Zazid and Dol pri Hrastovljah has been carried out as part of the project Identification of cave bear sites in Slovenia (Fig.1). The cave (435m above sea level) is 7 meters wide and up to 6 meters high (Fig. 2). There are remains of a drywall in front of the cave's entrance and remains of old breccias (Fig. 3) with fossilised bone fragments inside the cave's tunnels (Fig. 3B, 3C). Two small pits (dimensions 40cm by 50cm) were dug in the sedimentary base (Fig. 2, 4), yielding 94 kg of sedimentary material for archaeobotanical analysis ( Table 1). A total of 1,135 animal fragments were found. Of these, only 152 (less than 13%) were identified and classified according to taxonomy. The fragments belong to at least 21 species of 14 families (Fig. 2, 4, 7, 9). Ursus ingressus and Ursus spelaeus were the most abundant categories identified in the analysed material (Fig. 5). A significant amount of these fragments is related to juvenile bears (Tab. 3). In addition to a few charcoal fragments, the analyzed material revealed rare, charred and uncharred, seeds/fruits of wild plant species. Grape seeds and a wheat grain are probably of recent origin and the result of layer contamination ( Tab. 5). A total of 69 stone tool elements (Tab. 6; Fig. 7, 8, 9) were found in the sifted material. We also observed concretions of light brown-yellow-reddish colour, similar to quartz by appearance, feel and colour (Fig. 10). The chemical analysis shows increased presence of phosphor and silicium (Fig. 11, 12). The concretions are believed to be the result of the process of adipocere, i.e. the saponification of animal corpse, quite possibly, of a cave bear. The faunal remains suggest that the settling of find-bearing sediments took place before the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum, i.e. 26,000 years ago, and probably continued into the Late Glacial. A detailed cultural classification is impossible due to lack of typological indication tools. Therefore, for now, these finds can be roughly classified as belonging to Gravettian or Epigravettian cave inhabitants, dating between 21.000 and 10.000 BP.