Open AccessBudimirica Cave is a small cave located in the southern part of the Republic of Macedonia, inthe Kamenica Valley, a tributary to the Crna Reka and part of the Vardar river drainage network.The response of the cave to Late Pleistocene environmental changes is interpreted based on adetailed study of cave sediments, with previous data being supplemented, reinterpreted andcompared to the Ohrid Lake palaeoclimate record. The oldest exposed speleothems in the Budimiricasediment profile were deposited during the MIS 5a (radiometric age of ca 83 ka). Sandsto clays in the overburden are characterized by cycles separated by short-lived interruptions indeposition. They were deposited from a number of repeated flood events likely during the MIS4 stage, the Weichselian (Wurmian) Glaciation, correlating to aggradation in the Kamenica Valley.The top flowstone is correlated with a warmer climate excursion at 45–50 ka (MIS 3) recordedfrom the Ohrid Lake deposits. The whole section was extensively eroded during the MIS 2stage, due to strong incision in the Kamenica Valley, indicated by knickpoint retreat. The erosionsurface is overlain by a fossil-bearing breccia (with Ursus spelaeus) derived from frost shatteringof the cave walls close to the entrance due to climate deterioration and enlargement of theentrance by slope retreat during the MIS 2 stage. Budimirica Cave sediments reflect changes inthe Kamenica Valley, as well as the environmental changes during the last glacial-interglacialcycle, with clastic cave sediments deposited during glacial stadials, and erosion and flowstonedeposition characteristic of the interstadials. They also allow reconstruction of the evolution ofthe Kamenica Valley during the Late Pleistocene, with a general trend of valley incision hinderedby climate influenced river aggradation, but reinforced by river knickpoint retreat.
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