Betal Rock Shelter ( sl, Betalov spodmol), a

karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...

cave located on the south-eastern edge of the Lower

Pivka Pivka (, german: St. Peter in Krain, it, San Pietro del Carso) is a small town in Slovenia in the Pivka Basin in the Karst region. It is the seat of the Municipality of Pivka. It belongs to the traditional region of Inner Carniola. Name Pivka wa ...

river valley on a slope just above the road from

Postojna Postojna (; german: Adelsberg, it, Postumia) is a town in the traditional region of Inner Carniola, from Trieste, in southwestern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Postojna.

to Bukovje is a

site Site most often refers to: * Archaeological site * Campsite, a place used for overnight stay in an outdoor area * Construction site * Location, a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere * Website, a set of related web pages, typically ...

where rich cultural sediment layers with remains of stone tools, artifacts, and numerous

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

ized bones of contemporary animals were found.Osole, Franc. 1987. Betalov spodmol. ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'', vol. 1. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, pp. 253–254. Its entrance was formed by the collapse of the long cave's ceiling, carved out by the waters of the

River. The first excavations were carried out by Franco Anelli from 1933 to 1939. He excavated both in the cave and in front of it and found many

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

artifacts and numerous

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...

l remains, although this work remained mainly unpublished. Systematic recording of the archaeological sequence was begun anew by

Srečko Brodar Srečko Brodar (May 6, 1893 – April 27, 1987) was a Slovene archaeologist, internationally best known for excavation of Potok Cave ( sl, Potočka zijalka), an Upper Palaeolithic cave site in northern Slovenia. Life Brodar studied at the Univ ...

from 1947 to 1953. In the more than deep profile of eight cultural horizons, five separate strata revealed the bones of over 2,400 animals and stone tools. However, much of the material in the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...

and early

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

sediments found by Anelli is of limited value for scientific research and cannot be put into its correct

stratigraphic Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrati ...

context because the excavation records of these layers have been lost. The oldest strata are attributed to the warm Mindel-Riss interglacial period followed by the

Riss glaciation The Riss glaciation, Riss Glaciation, Riss ice age, Riss Ice Age, Riss glacial or Riss Glacial (german: Riß-Kaltzeit, ', ' or (obsolete) ') is the second youngest glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch in the traditional, quadripartite glacial classi ...

period, that consisted of rock debris mixed with loam and pieces of sinter. In it proto-

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latt ...

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s and the fossilized bones of a Deninger's bear have been found, dated to an age of 300,000 years. The next strata of red loam and debris contained

l bone

s from

cave bear The cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus'') is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word "cave" and the scientific name ' ...

''(Ursus spelaeus)'', wolf, the Alpine marmot,

Merck's rhinoceros ''Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis'', also known as Merck's rhinoceros or the forest rhinoceros, is an extinct species of rhino known from the Middle to Late Pleistocene of Eurasia. One of the last members of the genus ''Stephanorhinus'', it is co ...

, the

cave hyena The cave hyena (''Crocuta crocuta spelaea''), also known as the Ice Age spotted hyena, was a paleosubspecies of spotted hyena which ranged from the Iberian Peninsula to eastern Siberia. It is one of the best known mammals of the Ice Age and is w ...

, wild boar, and elk. The stone tool assemblage discovered in this stratum has been assigned to the ''

Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

culture. The following strata also held

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

faunal remains, particularly those of the Alpine marmot, of

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

and cave bear. The presence of these fossils points to a deposition during the last glacial period, the

Würm glaciation The Würm glaciation or Würm stage (german: Würm-Kaltzeit or ''Würm-Glazial'', colloquially often also ''Würmeiszeit'' or ''Würmzeit''; cf. ice age), usually referred to in the literature as the Würm (often spelled "Wurm"), was the last g ...

, which lasted from 110,000 to 11,700 years ago. This layer included numerous tool flakes created through

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

knapping Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing ...

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

occupants and

modern humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

, who account for the few tools of the

Gravettian The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by 2 ...

culture. The uppermost stratum includes

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

tools and the fossilized bones of wild boar, wolf, and beaver, whose presence suggests the establishment of the most recent

climate. The top coat of this stratum carried

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

and

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

tools, artifacts, pottery shards, and the skeletal remains of

domesticated Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. A ...

animals. Betal Rock Shelter has been declared a monument of local importance of

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

and was added to the national Register of Immovable Cultural Heritage under number 859 on December 22, 1984.

Gallery

File:Betalov spodmol inside.jpg, Inside Betal Rock Shelter

References

External links

Betal Rock Shelter at Geopedija
{{Navbox prehistoric caves 1933 archaeological discoveries Stone Age sites in Slovenia Municipality of Postojna Neanderthal sites Mousterian

Gallery

See also

References

External links