Crvena Stijena (which means ‘Red Rock’ in Montenegrin) is a very large rock shelter in a limestone cliff stained red by iron oxides in western Montenegro. It is filled with archaeological remains lasting over 80,000 years, spanning the Middle Paleolithic through the Bronze Age. As such, the site contains one of the longest, continual archaeological sequences in all of Eurasia.

It has been known for over sixty years as one of the most important Paleolithic sites in the Balkan peninsula. It contains 10 meters in depth of deposits containing the remains of Neanderthal occupations, and another 10 meters in depth of deposits from the late Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages.

Crvena Stijena also has a political and cultural symbolism beyond that of most archaeological sites. The archaeological excavations were a symbol of progressive science in Yugoslavia in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, it has retained its place of distinction in the school textbooks within the descendent republics, particularly in Montenegro. Yet the site itself, being older than the nation states and ethnic groups of the region, stands as a repository of humanity’s cultural, biological, and geological history of global significance.