The cave was discovered in 1959 Petralona a resident of the same name Philip Chantzaridi community.

One hundred meters south of the current artificial entrance (behind the museum) is a split in the rock ceiling, from which villagers Barba-Philippe came to the ropes and saw “with stalactites and stalagmites inside the cavities, rather than a source of water waiting to find.

Is known worldwide in 1960, when another resident of the community Petralona Sarigiannidou Chris, found the skull of the famous Arhanthropos.
Systematic excavations began in 1965 by the founder of SA, Professor Aris N. Paulianos, who proved that the Arhanthropos Petralona is 700,000 years old and is the archaic version of modern man (an early evolutionary stage of transition from their ancestral anthropidikes forms the wise Man – Homo sapiens).

Investigations are continuing, despite occasional interruptions in the context of the activities of SA, by himself and his son, Dr. Nick A. Paulianos.