Leta 2015 je bila v Vrtači pod vrhom hriba Kovk nad Hrastnikom naključno odkrita skupina kovinskih predmetov, ki vključuje negovsko čelado, kavljasto pasno spono in druge dele pasne oprave ter ...tulasto sekiro. Predmete je pridobil Pokrajinski muzej Celje, ki je avgusta 2016 izvedel kontrolno izkopavanje. Odkrit je bil skeletni grob bojevnika z dodatnimi deli pasne oprave, odlomkoma fibule in sulične osti ter stekleno jagodo. Tik ob njem je bil izkopan skeletni grob dekleta z ogrlico iz steklenih jagod, zapestnicama in nanožnicama ter nožičkom.
Med predmeti izstopata negovska čelada različice Vače slovenske vrste in pasna oprava vrste Kovk z izjemno kavljasto spono. Najmlajši grobni pridatki določajo čas pokopa obeh oseb v starejšem delu negovske stopnje.
Grobova pripadata planemu grobišču pod manjšo utrjeno naselbino na vrhu Kovka. Skupaj s skupino gomil na ledini Grobišče pri Kovku dopolnjujeta vedenje o železnodobni poselitvi Zasavja.
The Palaeolithic of southern Central Europe has a long history of archaeological research. Particularly, the presence of numerous osseous projectile points in many early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) ...assemblages in this region has attracted the attention of the international research community. However, the scarcity of properly identified and well-dated Aurignacian contexts represents an obstacle for investigation of the nature and timing of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. In this context, the question of whether Neandertals made Aurignacian osseous projectile points, either on their own or as a consequence of cultural interaction with anatomically modern humans (AMH), still remains an open issue. Here we reassess the EUP record of Slovenia by evaluating the Aurignacian character of the assemblages from Potočka zijalka, Mokriška jama and Divje babe I in the light of their suggested roots in the local Mousterian. We provide a comprehensive description of the lithic industry from Potočka zijalka, which represents one of the rare EUP assemblages of southern Central Europe with a representative number of lithic artefacts to be analysed from the perspective of lithic technology and raw material economy. Our re-analysis of the Slovenian assemblages is backed by a series of 11 new ultrafiltered collagen 14C dates obtained directly on associated osseous projectile points from the studied assemblages. The Aurignacian of Potočka zijalka underlines the remarkable consistency of the Early Aurignacian with low typo-technological variability across Europe, resulting from a marked dependence on transported toolkits and raw material conservation. The new radiocarbon determinations for the Aurignacian of Slovenia appear to post-date the 34–32 ka BP (thousands of years before present) threshold for the last Neandertals in the region. Although not falsified, the hypothesis of Aurignacian bone tools in southern Central Europe as a product of late Neandertals is not supported by our re-examination of the EUP record of Slovenia.
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