site.btaArcheologist: Lions Were Hunted in Present-day Bulgaria 5,000 Years Ago

Five thousand years ago there were lions on the territory of present-day Bulgaria, which people in these lands hunted, archaeologist Nadezhda Karastoyanova from the National Museum of Natural History with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences told BTA. 

"These were indigenous lions that were hunted by people in prehistory. We have records of them being hunted, of them being brought to settlements, of them most likely being consumed," she explained. According to her, Bulgarian lions were no different from those currently to be seen in Africa. "Supposedly their manes were smaller and some of them didn't even have manes. But these are hypotheses," she explained, adding that at this stage the remains are few.

In her practice, she has encountered a variety of cases. It depends on the period being studied, she explained. She is also currently working on a human prehistoric skeleton from Kozareva Mound, in northeastern Bulgaria, near the Black Sea. "We suspect the man was probably attacked by a lion, but we are still writing the paper and still doing the research," she said. She said there were marks on the skull that indicated he had been attacked by a large predator, and there were lions in Bulgaria at that particular time. Right on the Black Sea coast, near Durankulak, there are remains of lions. "We have a hypothesis that there is a possibility that this man was indeed injured by a lion, but the most interesting thing is that he survived and his wounds have healed," she said.