It is widely considered to host some of the oldest evidence of human habitation of Cyprus, dating to around 12,000 years ago.

The site, which is located on a British Royal Air Force base, was discovered in 1960 by an anonymous amateur, who reported the find to Stuart Swiny (director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia).

Swiny noted the existence of flint artifacts and a large number of hippo bones and that much of the site had eroded into the Mediterranean.

[1] The site contains mainly bones of the Late Pleistocene endemic Cyprus Dwarf Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus minor), which are represented by the remains of over 370 individuals[2] a much lesser amount of the Cyprus dwarf elephant (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes) representing the remains of at least 3 individuals, and artifacts (c. 1,000 flints including thumbnail scrapers of the Mesolithic type), which resemble those produced by the Natufian culture of the mainland Levant.

This is in general accord with Manning’s (2013:501 to 503) masterful compilation of all early Cypriot radiocarbon determinations, in which he places Aetokremnos within an approximate 12,950 to 10,950 years BP range while also preferring a somewhat longer occupation than we presented.