Balanica
Balanica is a cave complex, archaeological and palentological site in the City of Niš' municipality of Niška Banja in southeast Serbia. It consists of Velika Balanica and Mala Balanica. The entrances of two caves are apart, at an elevation of, and form one cave system. The two Balanica caves extend parallel to each other, likely being connected at the rear.
In 2006, remains of a non-Neanderthal archaic Homo were discovered in Mala Balanica. Estimated to be up to 525,000 years old, it was the oldest hominin remains discovery in Serbia and third oldest in Europe discovered at the time.
In 2022, Neanderthal fossils were discovered in Velika Balanica. Estimated to be 300,000 years old, they represent the oldest Neanderthal remains in Eastern Europe and the second oldest hominin fossils found in Serbia to date. This makes Velika Balanica one of the oldest sites in Europe documenting the transition from the Lower to the Middle Paleolithic. The caves also confirm that the Balkan Peninsula, due to its geographical location, was always an important crossroads, and a migration corridor even for archaic humans, connecting continents already 300,000 years ago. Different hominin morphologies survived and coexisted in the area, making the Balkans a "hotspot of biodiversity".
During the Marine Isotope Stage 5, the Neanderthals thrived. They lived all over the Balkans, including Balanica. In the wider Balanica region, evidence of the Neanderthal presence was discovered in the localities of Pešturina, Meča Dupka, Golema Dupka, and Kremenac, all in the Niš and Leskovac depressions, and on the slopes of the Radan mountain.
Due to its importance, the Balanica complex and the Pešturina cave are sometimes nicknamed Serbian Atapuerca, being compared to the Spanish Atapuerca, On 10 May 2022, the Government of Serbia designated the two Balanica caves as a protected cultural monument. They were officially declared an archaeological site under the name "Locality of Velika and Mala Balanica in Sićevo".
Location and geography
The Balanica caves are located within the Sićevo Gorge, some away from the last houses in the Sićevo village. The caves are inaccessible by roads or paths and can be reached only via ropes. Access starts at the southern exit from the village of Sićevo, where the ropes descend below the village's football field. The caves are locked and are opened only when excavations are conducted. The entrances into the caves face south, across the gorge, but overlooking to the west, and the wide South Morava Valley. Entrance into the Mala Balanica is at an elevation of, while the Velika Balanica's mouth is at, or above the Nišava river, which carved the Sićevo Gorge. The caves represent typical karstic cavities. They are located on the Sićevo's state owned cadastre lot No. 6720/1, on the southern slope of the gorge's Brljaski Kamen section, above the right bank of the Nišava river.Discovery
The caves in the surroundings of Niš attracted archaeologists already at the end of the 19th century, few decades after science adopted theories of evolution and glaciation. However, Balanica and Pešturina caves were discovered during the survey of the terrain for the construction of the Niš-Dimitrovgrad motorway, at the beginning of the 21st century. Balanica caves were discovered in 2002. Archaeological importance of the caves came to light when the local gold rush hit the area. Gold prospectors used the caves as bivouac shelters. They were discovering abundant quantity of artefacts and various remains, which prompted paleoarchaeologists to begin surveys.Excavations at Balanica, led by Prof. Dušan Mihailović from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, began in 2004 Researchers from the University of Winnipeg, Canada, headed by Mirjana Roksandic, joined the Serbian team in 2009. From the beginning of the research, it was clear that the Balanica cave complex is archaeologically significant, producing numerous artefacts, faunal remains, evidence of combustion, and hominin fossils.
Mala Balanica
Geography
The entrance is, the hall is, with average height of. The maximum height is, while the elongated karstic chamber is deep.Hominin remains
In 2006, a hominin hemi-mandible BH-1 was discovered at Mala Balanica. The CT scanning was conducted to create a 3D image of the mandible, while the U-series method of radiometric dating was originally used to determine the jaw's age. Due to the limitation of the process, and some unusual readings, it was tentatively dated to 113,000+72,000-43,000 years, as older specimen was never discovered in this part of Europe. This was set as the minimum age.The mandible was excavated in the lower stratigraphic level of the cave, below the artifact bearing level, or of total depth. It was the first hominin specimen in the Central Balkans recovered through controlled excavations with firm stratigraphic context. The mandible is long and preserved from the posterior canine alveolus to the mesial aspect of the ascending ramus. All three molars are present in their sockets. The lower half of the mesiolingual root of the third molar is missing and the remaining roots are exposed due to the destruction of the adjacent endomandibular lamina. The mesial section of the mandible shows an old breakage filled with sediment, whereas all of the breaks on the distal end are fresh.
The presence of the alveolar planum, and the overall robusticity indicated a non-modern morphology and primitive character states comparable with the Early Pleistocene. Despite relative geographic proximity and possible contemporaneity with the Krapina Neanderthals, the mandible does not share any observable derived Neanderthal traits. As it didn't appear to be Neanderthal, but more archaic, the mandible was originally described as belonging to Homo sp. Shape of the dental arcade and molar morphology placed the remains in the genus Homo, but its fragmentary nature and plesiomorphic character of its traits precluded a more precise taxonomic designation. However, the 2013 survey which included electron spin resonance combined with uranium series isotopic analysis, and infrared/post-infrared luminescence dating, provided a minimum age between 397,000 and 525,000 years. Measurements have been conducted by the University of Bordeaux in France, and Université du Québec à Montréal in Canada. Though some results, especially of the sediments where the mandible was discovered, showed results of older periods, up to 602,000 years old, the researchers concluded from other facts and circumstances that this is probably not the case, settling on the lower range. BH-1 represents a primitive, non-divergent hominin population outside the Neanderthal lineage, consistent with other Chibanian non-Neanderthals from the Eastern Mediterranean. Based on a detailed dental study, BH-1 was assigned to Homo heidelbergensis sensu lato. However, BH-1 was subsequently tentatively proposed as a member of the African Middle Pleistocene species "Homo bodoensis".
Even the lower range places Mala Balanica among the oldest hominin fossils in the European Middle Pleistocene. Its older estimate is slightly younger than Mauer 1 in Germany. Younger minimum age limit is close to the ages of Sima de los Huesos hominins in Spain, Arago in France and Visogliano in Italy. It is somewhat older than Ceprano, also in Italy. As for the surrounding region, there are only several other Middle Pleistocene sites which yielded hominin fossils—such as Petralona and Apidima, both in Greece—but these are likely notably younger.
Velika Balanica
Archaeology
Velika Balanica is a relatively large cave, covering, of which is surveyed. The entrance is, while the entry hall is. Originally, was accessible, with several buried corridors which lead into further, later uncovered, halls. A deep stratigraphic sequence is divided in 5 layers, which are divided into further sub-levels. Level 1 is sterile. Typical Mousterian artefacts are found throughout the 2nd layer, while the Charentian industries were discovered in the entire layer 3. Layers 4 and 5 are still being surveyed.Lithic assemblages from the Charentian period in both caves, and remains of microfauna, suggest that layer 3a corresponds to the late Middle Pleistocene, probably the interglacial Marine Isotope Stages 9 or 7. Taking into the account the Proto-Charentian character of industry, and parallels with Karain Cave in Turkey, this would put the layer 3a at 330,000–300,000 BP.
Fauna
Until 2014, over 10,000 animal bone remains were discovered, but due to the extreme fragmentation, over 86% is non-identifiable being shorter than. Among herbivores, the most represented are the remains of Alpine ibex and red deer, followed by chamois. They are present in all layers' 2 and 3 sub-layers. Bones of forest rhinoceros are found in some of the sub-levels of both layers, while wild horse, aurochs and steppe bison are represented only in the layer 3. Carnivores are much less represented, including remains of European wildcat in sub-layer 2a, cave bear in 2a and 2-b, and wolf in 3b and 3c. Remains of red fox were also found.Based on the topographic cliff-like location of the cave, abundance of ibex and chamois remains is expected. Predators belong to the typical grassland and forested environments, which corresponds to the moderate temperatures and presumed paleo-environment in the interglacial Marine Isotope Stages 7 to 9. It is believed that primary food source were deer and ibex, while other large fauna had secondary role. This points to a certain level of specialization in hunting, with focus on more productive animals. Sub-layer 2 indicate summer use of the cave and a clearly specialized economy which included summer hunting of young deer, grazing in herds in the Morava's fluvial plain. These localities are some to the south-southwest. By contrast, ibex and chamois were living around the site, on the gorge's cliffs. This points to the low role of large mammals in diet, which is generally narrow and heavily influenced by the location of the cave.
Unlike other Neanderthal groups, the main focus of Balanica residents was not the large game, as those animals lived in the river plains, far from the cave, which caused logistic problems of transporting large carcasses back into the cave. Failure in developing efficient transportation strategy of large animals may indicate sub-optimal behavior. Consequently, the paleo-economy practiced by the inhabitants of Velika Balanica was less efficient than the one observed in other Upper Paleolithic records. Still, the logistic mobility of the settlers was apparently rather high, which points to the intense residential use of the cave.
The taphonomical analysis points towards an anthropogenic origin of the deposit—that is, the remains were brought into the cave by humans, rather than animals living and dying in the cave. Biostratinomic and diagenetic alterations in the assemblage include the abundance of butchery and breakage marks, with thermoalterations confirming this. There is abundant evidence of marrow extraction. Long bones of red deer and ibex were particularly intensively exploited for the extraction of marrow grease.