Drachenhöhle or Drachenhöhle Mixnitz (literally ''Dragon's Cave of Mixnitz'') is a long cave with a wide and high entrance near Mixnitz,

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, south-east of

Bruck an der Mur Bruck an der Mur () is a city of some 15,970 people located in the district Bruck-Mürzzuschlag, in the Austrian state of Styria. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Mur and Mürz. Its manufacturing includes metal products and paper. ...

located at an elevation of above sea level.

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 '' ...

of the species ('' Ursus ingressus'') and other bone

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 preserve ...

s that people found during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

were deemed to be the bones of

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

s, a belief that culminated in the saga of the ''"Dragon slayer of Mixnitz"''. The cave is one of the largest caves in the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

where bears occupied an area that stretched over a length of way over , by an average width of up to and a height of . Due to a shortage of fertilizers during and after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

the high sediments inside the cave were intensively mined between 1918 and 1923 of which around 2,500 tons of

phosphoric acid Phosphoric acid (orthophosphoric acid, monophosphoric acid or phosphoric(V) acid) is a colorless, odorless phosphorus-containing solid, and inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is commonly encountered as an 85% aqueous solution, ...

were extracted. During the fertilizer mining, several geologists and paleontologists were present, who only documented the most valuable discoveries. Nonetheless, a rich cache of cave bear, Eurasian cave lion (''Panthera leo spelaea''),

Gray wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

(''Canis lupus''), Alpine ibex (''Capra ibex'') and Alpine marmot (''Marmota marmota'')

s, remains of open hearths and

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

stone tools of the

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...

culture dated to 65,000 to 31,000 BCE were unearthed. Dated to between 65,000 and 31,000 BCE, these rank among the oldest traces of human presence in Austria.

Excavations

Records of archaeological work were published in a

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

in 1931, that was re-edited by

Othenio Abel Othenio Lothar Franz Anton Louis Abel (20 June 1875 – 4 July 1946) was an Austrian paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. Together with Louis Dollo, he was the founder of " paleobiology" and studied the life and environment of fossilized ...

and G. Kyrie. Excavations took place at two locations inside the cave. The around 150,000 years old sediment's strata were divided into several layers, that among those named "Prehistoric layer" and "Paleolithic fireplace" also yielded a "

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

layer". To this day the bones of more than 30,000 cave bear fossils were excavated. The site was protected in 1928 and declared a natural monument in 1949.

References

External links

* Günter Auferbauer; Luise Auferbauer (2000). Grazer Hausberge: mit Mur- und Mürztal ; 52 ausgewählte Höhenwanderungen im Grazer Bergland, im West- und Oststeirischen Randgebirge, an der Rax, in den Mürzsteger und Fischbacher Alpen, in der Hochschwabgruppe, in den Eisenerzer Alpen, in den Rottenmanner, Triebener und Seckauer Tauern sowie in den Seetaler Alpen ; ie schönsten Tal- und Höhenwanderungen Bergverlag Rother GmbH. pp. 34–. . * Othenio Abel (1931). Die Drachenhöhle bei Mixnitz: Tafelband. Verlag Österr. Staatsdr. {{DEFAULTSORT:Drachenhohle Archaeological sites in Austria Caves of Austria Landforms of Styria Graz Highlands Dragons