Öküzini-cave

About Öküzini-cave

Okuzini Cave, whose name means "cave of the oxen", is a prehistoric archaeological site about 32 kilometres north-west of Antalya at the foot of the Katran Mountains, overlooking a floodplain that stretches towards the city and only 900 metres north-east of the famous Karain cave complex. Its mouth is almost sealed by large stone blocks, but inside a main chamber reaches 20 metres into clefts in the limestone that branch into narrow passages, and karst springs around it supply drinking water to nearby villages. Professor Ismail Kilic Kokten of Ankara University discovered it in the 1950s, and excavations followed: a joint Turkish-German team in the mid-1980s, then a mission led by Isin Yalcinkaya and Marcel Otte of the University of Liege from 1989 to 1999, with a Tubingen research group analysing its sediments, pollen and fauna. Its stratigraphic sequence spans some 18,000 years, from the Final Palaeolithic into the Neolithic, with burials in the upper layers and hearths, ash, stone tools and animal bones showing that it served as a seasonal camp used repeatedly over the ages; the cave also holds ancient rock engravings. For archaeology enthusiasts it completes a visit to neighbouring Karain.

Where:

Antalya, Türkiye