India, Dec. 22 -- One usually associates lions with Africa and South Asia & the Middle East. A new paper though, has highlighted how the world's second-largest cat did roam Europe too, back in the Copper Age, and even attacked humans.

Nadezhda Karastoyanova, Victoria Russeva, Petya Georgieva and Veselin Danov examined a grave at Kozareva mound and its necropolis, located in the bay of Burgas, about 4 km from the modern coastline.

"From a physical-geographic point of view, this is within the region of Thrace but is also the Black Sea region, and this is reflected in the specifics of the culture of the population during the different periods," the study noted.

A young man and a lion

The researchers examined the remains of an individual ...