Aug. 24, 2006 — A new find of a condo-like cave suggests not all cavemen were club-wielding, nomadic hunter-gatherers, but included some farmers and shepherds.
Evidence of such homebody cave dwellers comes from a recent excavation of a neolithic cave complex in Greece, dating from 5300-3900 B.C.The abode features a three-room complex with plastered floors and evidence of crop-growing and an attached stable nearby.
"This household was self-contained," said Panagiotis Karkanas, who conducted the excavation of the Kouveleiki Caves, which are located on the cliffs of a shallow valley in southern Peloponnese.
Karkanas, an archaeologist at the Ephoreia of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology in Athens, added, "I believe that the site was an ordinary household. The people were living there, cooking, sleeping, etc. probably during the whole year. They were both farmers and shepherds."
Karkanas made this determination after studying objects uncovered within the caves and after performing a detailed microanalysis of the cave sediments.
Findings will be published in the November issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The complex consists of two caves, the first of which is divided into two chambers by several rock blocks that appear to have fallen from the roof before the caves were inhabited.
The cavemen used this natural divide to their advantage, since one of the fallen rocks was curved and straightened to resemble a wall, which created a corridor between the two chambers.
Burnt manure found in the front chamber suggests a few animals — likely sheep and goats — were housed there. Karkanas told Discovery News that the animals probably were "milkers or very young." Cereal husks and residue found within the dung indicates the cave dwellers probably farmed the land in front of the caves.
He points out that farming in Greece started in the 7th Millennium or about 6500 B.C., at the beginning of the Neolithic era, also known as the New Stone Age.
