A Prehistoric Site at Meteora
Important Update (2025): Theopetra Cave after 8 long years has finally reopened for the public. The Theopetra Cave and the museum remain open every day except Tuesdays, from 08:30 AM to 15:30 PM. The entrance fee/ticket is 5 Euros per person with special rates for children/students/elderly. With the same ticket you can access both the museum and the cave.
Theopetra Cave, located just 5 km from Meteora, is one of Greece’s most significant archaeological prehistoric sites. Over the past few decades, it has uncovered many prehistoric artifacts from various periods of our prehistory. The findings include stone tools, burials, animal remains, and the oldest artificial structure. With its excellent location, offering easy access to fresh, clean water, food sources, raw materials, and a strategic vantage point, this unique cave’s location attracted early inhabitants who could recognize these advantages from miles away. Early prehistoric settlers continuously utilized the cave for more than 130,000 years!
From Neanderthals to Homo Sapiens
The site is unique from an archaeological perspective because it showcases the records of two significant cultural transitions within a single location: the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans and the later shift from hunter-gathering to farming following the end of the last Ice Age. The cave features a large rectangular chamber measuring 500 square meters, located at the foot of a limestone hill that rises northeast above the village of Theopetra.
The cave entrance is substantial, measuring 17 meters wide and 3 meters high. Its location is at the base of the Chasia mountain range, which serves as the natural boundary between the Thessaly and Macedonia prefectures. In front of the cave flows the small Lithaios River, a tributary of the Pineios River. This proximity to fresh, clean water provided the cave dwellers with easy access, eliminating the need for lengthy daily trips to water sources, and increased the chances of the cave’s inhabitants encountering other hunter-gatherers who followed these waterways.
Theopetra Cave: An almost continuous human presence
Excavations, which have been systematically carried out over the past decades, have unearthed light geological deposits dating to the Pleistocene and Holocene periods as well as anthropogenic deposits, indicating that the cave had been continuously inhabited during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic periods.
Specimens such as coal and human bones prove that the cave was occupied from about 135,000 BC to 4000 BC and that temporary use continued during the Bronze Age and historic times up to 1955. Even after that, the shepherds used the cave occasionally to shelter their herds until the excavations began. It is the first cave-dwelling as recorded in Thessaly during the Palaeolithic period. The latest cave findings published in 2012 by the lead scientist and her team responsible for the excavations, Paleoanthropologist Dr. Ekaterini (Nina) Kyparissi-Apostolika, have raised the time records of the cave’s dwelling to 135.000 BC.
Among the oldest human footprints in Europe
Excavations uncovered three human footprints dated to approximately 135,000 years ago. This remarkable find consists of four footprints in a row, believed to have been made by children aged 2 to 7. The children likely walked on the remnants of a fire, which later petrified, allowing the footprints to be preserved today. The stratigraphic sequence of Theopetra cave spans three cold periods: during the Middle era around 25,000 BC, throughout the Upper Paleolithic, and at the end of the Upper Paleolithic period (the close of the Pleistocene era).
Since 1987, excavations and studies at Theopetra have been conducted by a scientific research group from the Department of Paleoanthropology-Speleology, led by Dr. Ekaterini (Nina) Kyparissi-Apostolika. Among the objects discovered in the cave are stone tools from the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods, as well as Neolithic pottery, bone and shell artifacts, skeletons dating from 9000 and 8000 BC, and traces of plants and seeds that provide insights into the dietary habits of the time.
The oldest known artificial structure
In 2010, it was announced that an optical dating test known as Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) was conducted on a recently excavated stone wall found at the entrance of Theopetra’s cave. This test, which was applied to quartz grains found within the stones, revealed that the wall is the oldest known artificial structure. Dating back 23,000 years, the stone wall in front of the Theopetra cave was likely built to barricade the entrance and protect its inhabitants from cold winds during the peak of the last Ice Age. This discovery marks it as the oldest known example of human construction.
In conclusion, the Theopetra Cave stands as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of early humans, providing invaluable insights into their way of life over tens of thousands of years. Its archaeological significance is rooted in the remarkable artifacts unearthed and the stories of the generations who sought refuge there. The Theopetra Cave serves as a vital reminder of our shared heritage and the profound impact of our prehistoric past on the present.
Theopetra Cave is definitely a site nearby Meteora worth visiting, not to be missed by anyone!
Discover Meteora and Explore this Amazing Site of Greece
A massive stone wall. 21,000 bc. How is it overlooked that they created this structure of several ton stones when they supposedly barely had tools? Hmmm, not sure how but I’m not just going to accept that prehistoric man just magically figured it out.
Not magically, They were human beings (homo sapien). They were just plain smart and inventive and figured out a way to do it. In other words, just like us, but at the beginning of our emergence as THE primary hominid on this planet. They should not be denigrated. If we do so, then we would be denigrating who we humans are now.
That’s an excellent reply. When anyone says that our ancient ancestors could not build the great pyramids or travel long distances around the earth or invent amazing tools or build amazing things, without the help of aliens or without magic, it really does insult human potential, creativity and ingenuity of the past and in the present.
Its a fact that we can’t even build alot of the structures from the past
That is not fact and the hell we can’t. For real? China just made a damn so big it has changed the rotation speed of the planet. I’m sending an invisible signal through space to let you know we can build anything that was built then, we would just do it 10x better today. Have you seen the holes we dig for gold? People who say we couldn’t build what they could today only say that cause they have never built anything before or worked a trade. We are pretty amazing today.
True we can’t even build the buildings that we “built” for the worlds fairs. It’s such B’s our whole timeline and mainstream narrative is so f’ed up. Please stop accepting what these fake as scientists are saying. They are force fed this narrative and beliefs from birth, just like you and me. It’s not truth, it’s so much more incredible than you could ever imagine.
Just speaking for myself but it’s more of a”how?” Given what we are told about the limitations of early human development.
Some technologie and resources where not available.
I presume that we are missing something in the hole story of human evolution.
The gene that defines walking has a not explained mutation and is object of speculation.
Also other traits of human the human genome have signs of implicit mutation in a very short periode it doesn’t ad to natural evolution.
I agree. Homo sapien have one ablity that all their hominid ancestors had: they can see things in their minds that don’t exist and then create them. Along the additional creative thoughts may occur to them to improve the original idea. This is true of all fields: architecture, mathematics, science, medicine, the fine arts, anything. But they oberved everything to start them on that path. They were also willing to cross land or water without knowing whether anything better was on the other side. We are where we are because of them, and I feel a strong kinship with and admiration for them.
But if civilization was around earlier than the sumerians why are they considered the first civilization? We ignore truth to pad the egos of scientists who would do anything to not be proven wrong considering their entire being is based on their wrong opinions.
I am an art historian. When we use that term, as in Sumer is the first civilization, we are not talking about buildings. Instead, that refers to what we are able to gauge about the complexity of that society – the government, language (writing is often a part of that), buildings, religious institution, social structure, economic structure, ext. For us to call something a civilization, it needs to meet a set of criteria. You can have well-developed buildings, networks, religion, language, ext before you have civilizations. In fact, Turkey has many cities, towns, and occupied areas that predate Sumer, but they just don’t meet the criteria to be a civilization yet.
Please do tell me all about Atlantean and Lemurian history and its highly advanced civilizations that influenced the development of all others that followed. Edgar Cayce knew and revealed more about such than modern “academia” will ever speculate about. Cayce did not speculate or hypothesize, he accessed the actual events within the Akashic record, all human experiences on earth since the beginning of human existence. It matters zero that academia ignores this reality. They ignore facts willingly and blindly each live long day.
I agree our ancestors were not stupid, we have lost ancient technology if anything to argue or to be disappointed about. The Greece were very smart people
I agree that there’s nothing magical here. I just wish the people operating the website would post clearer photos of the wall itself. The pictures they post aren’t very well explained as to what they’re showing. It’s frustrating when archeological photos aren’t as clear as the descriptions of the scenes themselves.
Culture was animistic, hunter gather Matrifocal Sun as female not male.
Men were warriors of the Goddess.
Why is the world full of science hating conspiracy lunatics these days? Yes the evil scientists are lying to you all because they get extra bonus points from the science overlords for doing that. Uhuh, that’s how science works. The science overlords, who’s office is at the end of the corridor just past the deep state and opposite the flat Earth society office.
Humans working together with bare hands or simple tools achieve results of impressive building structures even within one day, as I witnessed many times as a member of a small community taking care of an ecological camping site.
And this is what humans have become, smh.
Maybe, just maybe we lost that particular knowledge because it became irrelevant. New building materials and techniques would have made monolithic construction a terrible choice. Don’t get me wrong, the trilithon stones are one of the most amazing things man ever built. If we were trying to accomplish a foundation that large today there are much cheaper, less labor intensive, quicker, etc.. ways to do it. It’s ridiculous to say that we can’t figure out how to build that way today. The current largest shipping crane can lift 10,000 tons. More than 10× the weight of a trilithon stone. Even the largest 15 ton pyramid stone could be easily moved by an average construction crane.
Just being smart doesn’t explain normal questions such as how they lifted heavy stones, chiseled them, etc..If indeed there was technology that helped them build these structures. It defies logic that all of it was lost and that there was never a find in the archeological records to prove the existence of such technology. Aliens; perhaps
The wall is made from roughly formed stones of differing sizes. It does not resemble a finely cut block stone wall. So think of the stones as looking more like chucks of rocks you can find around a mountain/cave that are stacked one on top of each other randomly in a pile. The use of stone hammers is also very ancient, predating Homo Sapiens, and have been used extensively for breaking and shaping rock effectively in many cultures. Stone hammers are found at almost all of our oldest building sites, showing the wear and tear of their use.
Very true. The simplest answer is usually the true answer.
Yes, aliens helped build the pyramids, then left and never came back. Makes perfect sense.
In Einstien’s theory of relativity, time and space are not a constant. Let’s just wrap our minds around the possibility of some culture from the billions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy with its Trillions of planets, millions of which are in the “Goldilock” zone orbiting a G type Yellow Dwarf Star much as our Sun, or a White Dwarf Star or any star. We would have to ignore the possibilityof civilizatios 10s of thouusands or more years furter advanced than our own. We Humans think we are the only Devine creatures but IF God created the universe then the possibility of other Devine creatures with so many possibilities really can not be rationally dismissed. Civilizations more advanced than we can imagine could have concerned near light speed travel or mapped Worm holes in the fabric of space. In this context, an advanced species could have visited our little Blue planet many times in OUR past but time slows to a crawl if travel near light speed is possible or Worm holes in the fabric of space were mapped by these advanced species. To us, the Great Pyramids are approximately 7,000 years old, a mere drop in the bucket of time. However, IF, there was help by non terrestrial beings and they departed our Blue Marble traveling at near light speed, for them, they left maybe 2 weeks ago. That’s just Realitivity folks..if we sent Astronauts on a journey to our closest star, Alfa Centauri at near light speed or let’s say half light speed. The journey would take the travelers 8.6 Earth years to reach our nearest star system BUT, for each day the crew traveling at that speed 1 Earth day 24 hours for them would equate to over 7,000 Earth years. Again, that’s Realitivity. So….. our Alien buddies who possibly helped mankind in our ancient times just left a couple of their days ago. Did this happen? I have no idea. Is it possible for a civilization wildly more advanced than us? Extremely possible.
It is probably a natural phenomenon misidentified as artificial, given karst cliffs including Meteora often mimic man-made structures.
Nothing built in the 21st century will be around for archeologist to discover 20000 years from now. It would be a miracle if anything built today will be around in 200 years.
The cradle of humanity has always been Greece , little know to the Afrocentric believer’s who continuously downplay the significance of archeology discovered in the eastern Mediterranean making up fairy tales to appease their fantasies .
So many non believers. Surly it’s simple enough to work out that you have to block the wind and cold or even wild animals from entering the cave their home. Silence never wants to believe their eyes.
Science.
How do I get to Theopetra from the U.S.?
Well….. you see….. there are these things we have invented called airplanes! They’re totally all the rage these days! You get inside of them and then it flies thru the air magically to your desired destination!
I suggest you contact your local travel wizard! They will assist you!!!
As to the comments about these humans not being smart enough to do this, how many of you remember when there was no TV, no cell phone, no computers and no internet? Humans kept evolving. Think of the things the next couple of generations are going to come up with. Think about AI, which I’m not that crazy about, but it is innovation. A human had to come up with all this. I’m 76 years old and I’ve seen so many changes that I know there will be more.
See how much work we can get done when we aren’t so busy scrolling social media and taking selfies? We love to degrade our ancestral capabilities. We are capable of much if we put our minds to it and stop scrolling. Let the trolls come for me. I’m ready for it.
Well….. you see….. there are these things we have invented called airplanes! They’re totally all the rage these days! You get inside of them and then it flies thru the air magically to your desired destination!
I suggest you contact your local travel wizard! They will assist you!!!
Humans are ingenious. I learned that in Iraq with the Improvised Explosive Devices that were created by al-Qaeda were incredibly insidious.
On another note just wanted to tell you Thank you for your service dirk disco
You are funny!! Are humans that stupid? Is that what you’re saying? Sad lonely people.
Meteora monasteries are must to see in Greece. Now, thanks to this newly open cave I have a reason more to visit this location again. Who has a time should also see a sea Diros cave on the Mani peninsula of Peloponesis. Visits are on the narrow boats. Like crossing Styx river 🙂