Hato Caves are
show caves, publicly accessible since 1991 and a popular
tourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement.
Types
Places of natural ...
on the
Caribbean island of
Curaçao. The caves consist of marine
coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans 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 ...
, which accumulated over millions of years and after sea levels had dropped were exposed to
atmospheric corrosion and
karstic processes. They are approximately long and cover an area of .
Location
The site is situated on the island's northern coast, north of the town of
Willemstad
Willemstad ( , ; ; en, William Town, italic=yes) is the capital city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the capital of the Netherlands Antilles pr ...
on the Roosevelt Weg. The caves constitute layers and terraces. Several caves are to be found on the second terrace, the Hato Caves are exclusively located above on the third terrace.
History
The earliest known inhabitants of the caves about 1,500 years ago were the
Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
Arawaks and
Caiquetio Indians, who also buried their dead in the caves. The numerous
petroglyphs
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
and cave drawings are attributed to these early occupants. Before the abolition of slavery, runaway
slaves used the caves as hiding places.
See also
*
List of caves
This is a list of caves of the world that have articles or that are properly cited. They are sorted by continent and then country. Caves which are in overseas territories on a different continent than the home country are sorted by the territory' ...
*
Caribbean people
*
History of Curaçao
The history of Curaçao starts with settlement by the Arawaks, an Amerindian people coming from the South American mainland. They are believed to have inhabited the island for many hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans.
Pre-colonial ...
References
External links
Hato Caves
{{Navbox prehistoric caves
Natural history of Curaçao
Caves of Curaçao
Petroglyphs in South America
Caves of the Caribbean