Description : Cultural objects dug out from the cave of Kopačina (1 km to the north-west of Donji Humac) indicate human habitation since the stone age. The cave is about 12 meter long, and has two chambers. Remains of wild horses, birds, deers, and bears were found, as well as stone knives, drills, arrow tips, and other mesolithic tools, among numerous mesolithic flint weapons, have been found in the front chamber. In the middle part of the cave, ceramics and an early Bronze Age axe have been found. In the back of the cave, human remains from the epipaleolithic and the mesolithic have been found. The radiolarite rock used for some of the objects found in the cave is not known to exist on the Dalmatian islands or the Dalmatian coast, and indicates connections to the Dalmatian hinterland, likely the mouth of the Neretva or the Budva region. The cave was first explored by Frane Bulić in 1890. It used to be thought that the cave has been continuously inhabited since the late Upper Paleolithic through the Mesolithic until the Bronze Age, i.e. from the 8th to the 3rd millennium BC. More recent results indicate an even older original usage - before 13,200 BP (although it is unknown how long before) - but not continuously to the Bronze Age. That would make the findings in the cave possibly the oldest traces of human settlement not only on Brač but in all of Dalmatia.
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