Beneath an olive grove near Parabita, in Italy’s Puglia region, a geophysical survey has picked up several anomalies in the limestone around the Grotta delle Veneri that may be cavities nobody has recorded before. The cave takes its name from two Palaeolithic Venus figurines carved from bone about 20,000 years ago, and the new readings suggest the known cave may not be the whole of it.
The word that governs the result is “may”. The survey detected signals, not rooms, and the published account states that there is currently no evidence that any of the anomalies contain archaeological deposits.
Ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity
The work is described in a 2026 paper titled “New data about Grotta delle Veneri by GPR and ERT surveys” in the journal Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (volume 42, article e00560). Its authors are D.F. Barbolla, C. Torre, L. De Giorgi and G. Leucci, and IFLScience’s coverage places the team at the University of Malta and Italy’s Institute of Heritage Science.
Two non-invasive techniques were combined. Ground-penetrating radar sends electromagnetic pulses into the ground and records how they reflect from changes beneath the surface. Electrical resistivity tomography measures how strongly different materials resist an electric current, which separates open voids and loose fill from solid rock. Where both methods flag the same spot, confidence rises, and the reported result is a cluster of anomalies in the surrounding limestone that fits the pattern of undocumented cavities, some perhaps linked to the main cavern. Neither technique can say what fills a void, or whether it is empty, flooded or packed with sediment.
Anomalies in the limestone, and the limits of the data
According to HeritageDaily’s October 10, 2026 report, the survey identified several anomalies that may be previously undocumented cavities, and some may connect to the known cave system. The report gives no count of anomalies, no depths and no survey dates, so those details are not available to repeat.
The caveats are firm. Further investigation is needed to determine the extent of the anomalies and whether any are accessible, and nothing in the survey tells archaeologists what, if anything, lies inside. IFLScience makes the same point more bluntly: the interpretation cannot be confirmed without digging.
A comparison offered in the report is Gorham’s Cave Complex in Gibraltar, where similar surveys in 2021 led to a previously unknown chamber about 13 metres long that had been sealed for roughly 40,000 years and preserved evidence of Neanderthal activity. That outcome shows what a successful follow-up looks like; it is not a prediction for Parabita.
The two bone Venuses of Parabita
The figurines are the reason the cave is famous. The Italian prehistory database lists them as the Parabita figurines, found in 1966 during excavations in the cave, which had first been entered in August 1965 by Giuseppe Piscopo of the Salento speleological group and Antonio Greco. Each is carved from a bone splinter of an ox or horse. The larger stands 9 centimetres high and the smaller 6.1 centimetres, and the card dates both to the Gravettian, about 20,000 years ago. They are held at the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto.
Not every source agrees on the age. Don’s Maps, a long-running Palaeolithic site guide, gives roughly 17,000 years before present, and describes the larger Venus as having a prominent abdomen, perhaps indicating pregnancy, with incisions at the neck that may show a collar or hood. The 20,000-year figure used here follows the Italian card and the 2026 report.
HeritageDaily’s description of the figurines adds detail that makes them more than a name on a cave. Both show stylised female forms with the arms crossed over the breasts and beneath the abdomen, which some researchers read as pregnancy or fertility. The larger has deep grooves across the face, possibly a veil, mask or hairstyle, and the smaller shows similar features. Scholars have compared the body proportions with Mediterranean examples, the facial detailing with Rhine-Danube figurines, and the posture with finds from Russia, so a cave in southern Italy sits inside a continent-wide pattern of Gravettian carving.
Earlier excavations in the cave also turned up older deposits linked to Neanderthals, which is why the survey team treats the site as a long sequence of human occupation and not only the home of two statuettes. Any chamber that proved to be sealed and intact would be a rare chance to compare undisturbed layers with the deposits dug in the 1960s.
The result so far is a set of geophysical targets and nothing more. None of the sources read mentions a planned excavation, and the paper’s authors, Barbolla, Torre, De Giorgi and Leucci, conclude as reported that the anomalies need further investigation before anyone can say what they are, how large they are, or whether a person could ever enter them.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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