Francis Turville-Petre was born into a Catholic, landed gentry family in England, the oldest of the five children of Oswald and Margaret Petre (née Cave).
It was in the Zuttiyeh cave that he discovered the partial frontal cranial remains of what was first thought to be a Neanderthal individual.
[8] In 1928 he moved to Berlin, Germany, and resided at the Institute of Sexual Research, run by Dr Magnus Hirschfeld.
He encouraged his friend Christopher Isherwood to join him in Berlin, and together with W. H. Auden they enjoyed life, and especially the nightlife, in the city.
Turville-Petre left Berlin in 1931 and took up residence on his private rented island of Agios Nikolaos (St Nicolas) near Euboea, in Greece.