if the cave entrance and the passage to the structures
and the area where the structures are located share apx
the same elevation then the entire cave would be exposed
to the same temperature as the cave entrance.
I would think that the people who lived in the cave would
have began living in the cave apx 200,000 years ago.
as the ice age set in.
and they would have moved on as the ice age and glaciers retreated
apx 140,000 years ago.
that would give them 60,000 years or 2000 generations to
adapt to their environment , this time line fits into what
you said about the first modern human find being apx 100,000 years old.
what may have happened is that these people might have been
early human not neanderthal as they left Africa and developed
parallel with modern humans in Africa.
it certainly would explain the fair skin of the europeans much
better.
because life in a cave spread over 2000 generations of
little sunlight would definitely cause skin pigment to
lighten in color.
also I have now seen the entrance and passageways leading into
the site and a really large neanderthal would have a hard time
getting into the cave.
so they were most likely a group of early modern human explorers.
As far as travelers from Africa, that wouldn't matter, because at that time Africans were at about the same stage of development as the Neanderthals. The first remains that are considered to be those of undoubted modern humans are from around 100,000 years ago.
