The Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura are a collection of six caves in southern

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

which were used by

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

humans for shelter about 33,000 to 43,000 years ago. Within the caves were found the oldest non-stationary works of human art yet discovered, in the form of carved animal and humanoid figurines, in addition to the oldest musical instruments ever found.One statuette of a female form, carved figurines of animals (including cave lions, mammoths, horses and cattle), musical instruments and items of personal adornment have been discovered. Some of the figurines depict creatures that are half animal, half human. Because of their testimony to the development of Paleolithic art and culture, the six caves were inscribed on the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage List A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

in 2017. The caves are seen as the first centre of human art.

Location

The World Heritage comprises six caves which are distributed across two valleys in the Swabian Jura:

Lone (river) The Lone is a river in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It flows into the Hürbe river, a tributary of the Brenz, which in turn discharges into the Danube. Course The Lone rises from a Karst spring with a large discharge near Urpsring, in the muni ...

Valley and Ach Valley. The former includes the caves ''

Hohlenstein-Stadel Hohlenstein-Stadel is a cave located in the Hohlenstein cliff (not to be confused with the Hohle Fels) at the southern rim of the Lonetal (valley of the Lone) in the Swabian Jura in Germany. While first excavations were started after the second ...

'', '' Vogelherd'' and ''Bocksteinhöhle''; the latter '' Geissenklösterle'', ''Hohle Fels'' and '' Sirgenstein Cave''. Each valley would contain a core area of around length, surrounded by a buffer zone of a least width.

Geology and History

The bedrock of the caves began to form roughly 200 million years ago, at the beginning of the

Jurassic Period The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

, when the super-continent

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million y ...

began to break apart. The area was inundated by the

Neotethys The Tethys Ocean ( el, Τηθύς ''Tēthús''), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean that covered most of the Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to ...

Sea, and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

formed from the marine sediments. During the early Cenozoic, the area was uplifted by the collision of the

Eurasian plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

and the African and Adriatic plates. Once this occurred, the sinkholes and caves of the region were formed as rain seeped into the limestone. When the Lone and Ach valleys formed, access to the caves from the surface became possible, and the caves gradually dried out and filled in with sediment, preserving materials brought into the cave from humans. The caves of the Swabian Jura are particularly famous for their high density of artifacts from the Aurignacian tradition, ranging from roughly 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Aurignacian tradition is characterized by the advent of symbolic communication (in the form of beads and pendants), specialized flint blades, and figurative art, all of which have been found in high numbers within these six caves. During this time,

early modern humans Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from extin ...

migrated into Europe, probably from the southeast along the Danube River, and settled in the easily accessible caves in the area. There, they likely lived and worked in and around these caves. The caves also served as the repositories of the figurines which may have been used in a religious context. In addition, they were the venue where performers used the excavated musical instruments and where the social groups lived from which the artists sprang.

Caves

References

{{Navbox prehistoric caves World Heritage Sites in Germany Caves of Germany Archaeological sites in Germany Geography of Baden-Württemberg Landforms of Baden-Württemberg Paleoanthropological sites