Hohle Fels

Cave entrance

The Hohle Fels is a karst cave in the Swabian Alb and one of the most important archaeological sites of the Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe. Since the 19th century, the uninflected form of the name Hohle Fels is occupied. Lately, especially the spelling of Hohle Fels is used (see paragraph name history ).

The cave is located about one kilometer (Alb -Donau-Kreis ) from the center of Schelkingen. It consists of a 15 meter long corridor and the subsequent hall. The cave hall with 500 m² of floor space and a capacity of 6000 m³ one of the largest in southern Germany. The entrance is 534 meters above sea level in a sponge prongs of the White Jura, at the foot of the slope of the current Achtals.

History of Research

1830 met the potter Karl Friedrich Rixinger in the cave when digging for clay and clay on bones of cave bears, which he sold to the Ulm Kreisforstrat Friedrich von Mandelsloh, a passionate collector of geo - paleontological and archaeological discoveries of Alb, without place of origin.

1844 recycled Georg Reichenbach, cotton manufacturer in Steingädele, bat guano and other debris out of the cave to a greater extent as a fertilizer. Without knowing it was Oscar Fraas from the Royal Natural History Cabinet in 1870 to investigate the Höhlenlehm. He found an average of a phosphate content of around 19 percent. "This is so much that the material can be used by fertilizer factories well. "

An excavation by Oscar Fraas and Pastor J. Hartmann yielded 1870/71 remains of the cave bear, reindeer, mammoth and wild horse. The Anthropological Association led in 1872 together with the founder of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, Prof. Rudolf Virchow, on the verge of meeting a tour of the cave through. Ahead of the meeting, the cave was blocked by a gate and made ​​accessible by wooden stairs and footbridges. The participants were allowed to take away from the findings of the excavations of 1870/1871 souvenirs. The remaining findings, a whole railroad car full, were taken to the Royal Naturalienkabinett to Stuttgart.

Later the Tübingen prehistorians Robert Rudolf Schmidt ordered the tools found during the excavation of Oscar Fraas to the Aurignacian and Magdalenian (younger Paleolithic ). In 1906, Schmidt examined the cave again, but without encountering archaeological layers.

1958-1960 led Gerlinde Matschak and Gustav Riek by archaeological excavations. In 1966 the cave by Bernhard Mangold, Andreas Pöhler and Helmut Frank was measured. From 1977 excavations were carried out by the Institute for Prehistory University of Tübingen led by Joachim Hahn († 1997), which were borne by the State Conservation Office of Baden- Württemberg and at times by the Sonderforschungsbereich 53 of the University of Tübingen.

Since 1997, the annual excavations by Nicholas Conard (University Tübingen) are conducted.

Archaeological finds

Aurignacian

The Upper Palaeolithic cabaret from the Aurignacian of the Swabian Alb is also the oldest figurative art of humanity. In addition to the Hohle Fels all these carved from mammoth ivory artworks also come from the nearby Geißenklösterle, and from the bird oven cavity and the Hohlenstein in the Lone Valley. In recent years, several spectacular discoveries reach the lower Aurignacian layers of Hohle Fels, which are among the oldest art works of mankind:

• In 1999, a 3.6 cm large horse head from mammoth ivory;
• 2001/ 02 is only found in two parts, 4.7 cm large water birds of ivory;
• 2002, a 2.5 cm large human figure made ​​of ivory. This may be wearing a Felidenkopf, hence the name " Löwenmenschle " (in reference to the lion man from Hohlenstein censure );
• 2008 in layer V ( older Aurignacian ) the 6 cm "Venus of Hohle Fels ", with a minimum age of 32,000 BP (equivalent to at least 35,000 cal BC ) next to the Venus of Gallows Hill, the oldest Venusfigurine of mankind.

In 2008, an almost complete bone flute from the spoke of a griffon vulture was also found in the Aurignacian layer V. The flute from Hohle Fels is obtained over a length of 21.8 cm and has a diameter of about 0.8 cm. It comes as the Venus figurine from the lowest layer Va of the Aurignacian and is therefore to be dated to at least 35,000 cal BC. Two other fragments flute (flute 2 and 3) have been made ​​from mammoth ivory, probably in the same technique as flute 3 from Geißenklösterle.

Gravettian

The Hohle Fels was during the Ice Age, temporarily winter resting place for cave bears. In Fund layers of Gravettiens the hitherto only direct evidence of hunting could be performed on these animals: A projectile tip of flint was found in the thoracic vertebrae of a cave bear sticking. The cave was probably killed during his hibernation in the cave. At other cave bear bone from the studied sediments reported by archaeologists characteristic cut marks that document all stages of carcases.

In 2005, a retoucher was found from pebble in the Gravettian layers Fund, the phallus of Schelkingen.

Magdalenian

Even in younger Fund layers came to light decorated objects from the genre of Upper Palaeolithic cabaret. A particularly well-preserved limestone fragment with red dot painting was found in 1998. It comes from the layer GH 1k and thus from the upper Magdalenian. The piece is 7.6 inches tall and has the domed top, two double rows of painted red dots, which are made ( a dye on limonite base so ) according to the authors of ocher. During the excavations in the summer of 2009, four more painted stones were found, one with two full double rows of dots and a fragmentary series of dots ( AH layer Ia), another stone ( AH layer I) had blurred red spots on. In addition, color pieces were found in the upper Magdalenian layers: layer in AH Ic a piece of hematite, in layer Ib AH a piece of red chalk. This suggests that it is all red color jobs is sanguine or hematite, which occur as minerals in karst columns of Alb course.

The painted objects from the Hohle Fels were from November 2011 to February 2012 in the Museum of the University of Tübingen in an exhibition titled - shown " Painted stones the end of the Ice Age art in the Swabian Alb ". Equal old findings with almost identical livery point there is in southern Germany from the Upper Klaus cave in Altmühltal and out of the "little scrubbing " of the middle half of the cave caves stone. Far older color jobs can be found on stones from the nearby Geißenklösterle, for example, a tri-color (black, red and yellow) painted stone from the Aurignacian layer IIb. In Geißenklösterle pass the red color of hematite orders, the yellow limonite.

Before the discoveries of the Hohle Fels Gagatstatuetten of Peter rock were considered most important objects of the South German Magdalenian.

Name history

Since the chief official description of Blaubeuren in the 19th century The cave is called Hollow Rock, which is still used today in official topographic maps. At the same time since the 19th century, the dialectal variant Hohle Fels is common in coupled together, which was picked up by archaeologists of the 20th century. One consideration was that the name Hohler Fels in the area of the Swabian Alb and Franconian is quite common and here, for example, confusion arises with the Hohle Fels near Happurg, which is also known as archaeological place. Therefore, it was resorted to by archaeologists to the historically established notation, similar as with the Hohlenstein in the Lone Valley, which had been performed in publications of the 19th century, both as a " hollow stone " and " Hohlenstein ".

Instead of agreeing on the historically documented Hohle Fels came in publications of Tübingen, Institute of Prehistory and Early History at the beginning of the 1990s the spelling of Hohle Fels as undeklinierter own name on. With the excavation line by Nicholas J. Conard in 1997, this case has been set for publication of the Tübingen Institute as binding. Since not historically handed down, the letters apart of adjective and noun contradicts without declension of the adjective, however, the rules of the Duden. Since the naming of the "Venus of Hohle Fels " in the undeklinierten notation, this is also perceived by the public as unusual.

Other Terms

Soon after the excavations of 1870/ 71, the first cave celebrations took place since the beginning of the 20th century at longer intervals also lighting the cave area. During the Second World War, the cave of the Armed Forces served as bunkers and storage for fire tenders from Klöckner - Humboldt -Deutz.

Supported by local clubs and the city administration cave festivals are conducted every year since 1950. For a long time find because of the good acoustics occasional cave concerts.