The cave is located at an altitude of some 1,100 metres in the foothills of the Sierra Tejeda.

In the summer of 1988, during a series of archaeological excavations carried out in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, a Neanderthal jawbone was unearthed in Boquete de Zafarraya cave (Alcaucîn, Málaga) which, due to its exceptional state of preservation, is considered one of the finest pieces ever discovered in Western Europe.

The jawbone, along with a femur and other remains, belonged to a male approximately 40 years old and 1.61 m. tall whom archaeologists christened Zafarraya man.