The interdisciplinary research of the Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, in the Kouvaras Cave on the southern lower slopes of Mount Merenta, has documented use of the space in final phases of the Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic period, ca 10,000 years BP. Animal bones, stone tools, hearths, seashells, Melian obsidian have been brought to light from undisturbed archaeological levels, while particularly rare is the tooth of a species of hippoid extinct from these early periods, Εquus hyndrutinus. The most significant find in the investigations are the Mesolithic burials of one woman, two young children and one infant. The evidence shows that the Kouvaras Cave is one of the earliest habitation sites in Attica and is a reference point for research in Aegean prehistory. The excavation has also an educational dimension, as undergraduate and postgraduate students of Archaeology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens participate in it.
Image source: Archive of the Ephorate of Paleoanthropology-Speleology, F. Mavridis
