[1][2][3] During 1983 a team of paleontologists from Bulgaria and France carried out excavations in and around Dorkovo in the Rhodope Mountains which unearthed fossils of 5-million-year-old prehistoric mammals of the Pliocene geological epoch.

It is located 150 kilometres (93 mi) from Sofia in the village of Dorkovo, Rakitovo Municipality between the town of Velingrad and the Batak Reservoir, in the Pazardzhik region.

[1][3] The museum, set amidst the forest, showcases of some of the fossil findings of the excavations, which revealed mostly gomphotheres (extinct elephant relatives).

It is housed in a domed structure made of wood both on the inner and outer surfaces, which measures 300 square metres (3,200 sq ft).

[3] Apart from the fossils collected from the field, the major attraction in the museum is model of a gomphothere of the species of Anancus arvernensis, which was made by the Simeon Stoilov Studio.