Petralona Πετράλωνα
Petralona cave entrance
Petralona Location within the regional unit
Coordinates: 40°22′10″N 23°09′33″E / 40.369522°N 23.159120°E / 40.369522; 23.159120[1]
Country	Greece
Administrative region	Central Macedonia
Regional unit	Chalkidiki
Municipality	Nea Propontida
Municipal unit	Triglia
Elevation	270 m (890 ft)
Population  (2021)[2]
• Total	316
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)
Vehicle registration	ΧΚ

Petralona (Greek: Πετράλωνα) is a small locality in Chalkidiki, Macedonia, Greece. It is 6 km N-W of Triglia and 35 km S-E of Thessaloniki. Its altitude is 270 m.^[3]

It is famous for the eponymous cave at about 1 km from the village, the Petralona cave in which was discovered one of the earliest European humanoids.

Prehistory

The Petralona cave, at the foot of Mount Katsika, was discovered in 1959 by a local looking for a spring. In it was found in 1960 the Petralona skull, extremely well preserved, dated to more than 700,000 years. It was named Archanthropus europaeus petraloniensis (Poulianos, 1976).^[4] This is considered as one of the oldest European Homo erectus specimen found so far.