Kopačina Cave, Donji Humac

Kopačina Cave lies on the northwestern side of the island of Brač, not far from Donji Humac. It is counted among the most important prehistoric sites on the Adriatic, because humans lived here for millennia.

The cave consists of two chambers connected by a narrow passage, and only the front one is lit by daylight through the main opening. It was in this chamber that the oldest traces of prehistoric man on the island were found: thousands of bones of wild animals and stone tools from the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic. Numerous pottery fragments from the Bronze Age and a winged axe from the early Bronze Age were also found. Near the cave there was a spring, which attracted people further. According to the finds, inhabitants stayed here from the eighth to the third millennium BC, which makes it the oldest human habitat in Dalmatia and one of the oldest on the Adriatic islands.

The cave is a protected cultural good, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-4928.

Photo: Martin Brož, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: DGU (centre of the settlement).