Paradise Cave ( pl, Jaskinia Raj, italic=no, ) is a horizontal karstic limestone cave located inside the Malik hill, to the south of Kielce, Świętokrzyskie Voivodship,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. It is part of the "Red tourist trail Chęciny - Kielce" in the

Świętokrzyskie Mountains The Świętokrzyskie Mountains ( pl, Góry Świętokrzyskie, ), often anglicized to Holy Cross Mountains, are a mountain range in central Poland, near the city of Kielce. The Świętokrzyskie Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in Europ ...

(Holy Cross Mountains).

Description

The cave has a length of and vertical range of however, only a section of length and two entrances are open to visitors. Despite its small size it is regarded as one of Poland's most beautiful caves and attracts numerous visitors. Its corridors lead through five chambers and caverns, that are ornamented with

speleothem A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending ...

s, such as stalactites, stalagmites and columns of calcified rock deposited over tens of thousands of years. In order to maintain an internal temperature of and 95 percent humidity required to preserve the cave's historical value and ecological integrity a maximum of fifteen people accompanied by a guide are admitted to enter the cave every fifteen minutes. In front of the entrance is an info center illuminated by

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a mea ...

, that exhibits the cave's archeological and

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

discoveries that include a replica of a

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 the ...

camp,

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 l ...

assemblages and

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 Paleolithic

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 (ecology ...

Archaeology

History

The cave was discovered in 1963 by Józef Kopeć and Feliks Wawrzeńczak, students of a local technical school. After extensive research and documentation by Tymoteusz Wróblewski and Zbigniew Rubinowski, geologists at the Świętokrzyskie branch of the Polish Geological Institute it was opened to the public in 1972.

Discoveries

The five chambers of the cave were formed during the

Middle Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...

epoch, approximately 350 million years ago. Inside, there are traces of occupancy by Neanderthal dating back 50 to 60 thousand years. Remains and fossils of Cave hyena and

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 ' ...

, that inhabited the cave and countless bones of mammalian species, such as

Woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...

and

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

s were unearthed at the site.

References

External links

Official homepage

{{in lang, pl – with a map 1963 archaeological discoveries Show caves in Poland Raj Landforms of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Tourist attractions in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Archaeological sites in Poland Mousterian Neanderthal sites Devonian Europe