Klithi or Kleidi Cave (, ''Spelaio Kleidi'') is located to the north of the village of
Kleidonia in the
Ioannina regional unit and around west of the
Megalakkos Cave, northwestern
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
. It is situated atop the northern bank of the
Voidomatis river valley.
Archaeology
Archaeological excavations that were undertaken by a British team between 1983 and 1986 revealed the cave that contained artefacts, stone tools,
fauna
Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...
l remains and other
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
s, that were dated back to the
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
and the
Epigravettian culture between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago.
Analogous discoveries were made by the same research team in the neighbouring
Megalakkos cave.
Further reading
*
Geoff Bailey (ed) 1997. ''Klithi: Palaeolithic Settlement and Quaternary Landscapes in North-west Greece'', Cambridge: Macdonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2 vols.
References
Caves of Greece
Landforms of Ioannina (regional unit)
Prehistoric Greece
Landforms of Epirus (region)
{{Epirus-geo-stub