Rock Art Research

Mladeè Cave is known primarily as a site that yielded a series of Early Aurignacian human remains combining archaic and modern characteristics, which contradict the ‘replacement hypothesis’. The cave also contains a series of red pigment wall markings, whose possible Pleistocene age has been speculated about. Here, the results of a survey and investigation of these markings, including a digitised colorimetric analysis of them, are presented. The complex exploration history of the site for well over a century is considered and it is concluded that the rock art is largely, if not entirely, modern.