Late Pleistocene Hominin Settlement Patterns in the Central Balkans: Šalitrena Pećina, Serbia

Abstract Recent research in the Central Balkans is discovering multiple human occupations previously unknown from the region, revealing its strategical location within Europe for human populations dispersing towards Central and Western Europe during the Pleistocene. Šalitrena Pećina (Serbia) contains evidence of late Neanderthal and early anatomically modern human (AMH) presence during the mid-to-late MIS 3. A Bayesian model of the radiocarbon dates, combined with the zooarchaeological and stable isotope analyses of the macromammals and technological analysis of the bone tools, provides new insight into subsistence strategies achieved by late Neanderthals and Aurignacian and Gravettian groups at the site. The results reveal diverse residential and short-temporal use of the cave by both human species. Bone tools show intensive use of the carcasses consumed for daily tools. The first evidence of Aurignacian and Gravettian bone industries in Serbia are presented here. Carnivores played a significant role after humans left the site. Radiocarbon dates indicate a millennium’s gap between Neanderthal and early AMH groups, and a few millennia between the Aurignacian and the Gravettian groups. Bone collagen δ13C and δ15N isotope values are indicative of a mixed forest and open landscapes near the cave, reflecting a more forested and humid condition during the Mousterian and colder environments during the Gravettian with open landscapes.