Potok Cave ( or ''Potočka zijavka'') is a cave in northern

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, declared a high-elevation

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

paleontological site A paleontological or fossiliferous site is a locality in which a significant quantity of fossils is naturally preserved in the rocks. The extent of the site is determined, in some cases, by the spatial distribution of the concentration of fossils ...

, occupied approximately 35,000 years BP (before present) by

anatomically modern human Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science ...

s 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 during the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

. The cave is named after the Potok Farm in Podolševa.SlovLit: Potočka zijalka
The Slovene term ''zijalka'' or ''zijavka'' refers to a flat-bottomed cave with a gaping mouth on a cliff face. Systematic excavations were carried out from 1928 through 1935 by Slovenian archaeologist Srečko Brodar.

Location

The cave is located in the eastern

Karawanks The Karawanks or Karavankas or Karavanks (; , ) are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps on the border between Slovenia to the south and Austria to the north. With a total length of in an east–west direction, the Karawanks chain is o ...

in northern Slovenia, on the southern slope of Mount Olševa above

Solčava Solčava (; German: ''Sulzbach'') is a village in the Upper Savinja Valley in northern Slovenia close to the Austrian border. It is the largest settlement and the seat of the Municipality of Solčava. Traditionally it belonged to the region of S ...

, at an elevation of in the

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

. It is Broda, Mitja. 1995. "Potočka zijalka." ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'', vol. 9, Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, pp. 193–194. long and varies from wide at the mouth to wide in the interior. Its entry opens toward the south.

Role

There are two explanations of its role. According to the original explanation, the cave was a hunting station. According to the newer one, it was a ritual place.

Excavations

After amateur excavations by Josef Gross, a medical student from

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 ...

, the area was bought by the Museum Society of

Celje Celje (, , ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, third-largest city in Slovenia. It is a regional center of the traditional Slovenian region of Styria (Slovenia), Styria and the administrative seat of the City Municipality of Celje. Th ...

. Systematic excavations were carried out on its behalf by archaeologist Srečko Brodar, starting in 1928 and continuing until 1935. The finds from eight layers excavated from the cave included the bones of more than 40 animal species, including

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 '' ...

wolves 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 ...

alpine marmot The alpine marmot (''Marmota marmota'') is a large ground-dwelling squirrel, from the genus of marmots. It is found in high numbers in mountainous areas of central and southern Europe, at heights between in the Alps, Carpathians, Tatras and N ...

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...

red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe and Asia, plus ...

es, weasels,

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

red deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or Hart (deer), hart, and a female is called a doe or hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Ir ...

, and

chamois The chamois (; ) (''Rupicapra rupicapra'') or Alpine chamois is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope native to the mountains in Southern Europe, from the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Dinarides, the Tatra Mountains, Tatra to the Carpa ...

, and

muskox The muskox (''Ovibos moschatus'') is a hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae. Native to the Arctic, it is noted for its thick coat and for the strong odor emitted by males during the seasonal rut, from which its name derives. This musky odor ha ...

teeth, as well as 123

arrowheads An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling. ...

, one of the world's oldest

sewing needle A sewing needle, used for hand-sewing, is a long slender tool with a pointed tip at one end and a hole (or ''eye'') to hold the sewing thread. The earliest needles were made of bone or wood; modern needles are manufactured from high carbon steel ...

s, and a bone flute made from a bear mandible.

Exhibits

In a village near the cave, a permanent exhibit is open for tourists at the Firšt Inn and Museum in the Logar Valley. The other finds can be seen at the Celje Regional Museum. Unfortunately much of the collection was destroyed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1945 Allied bombing raids.Brodar, Mitja. 2009. ''Stara kamena doba v Sloveniji = Altsteinzeit in Slowenien''. Ljubljana, samozalozba.
p. 278.

Gallery

File:Srečko Brodar 1962.jpg, Srečko Brodar File:Inside the Potok Cave - Potočka zijalka (Slovenia).JPG, Inside Potok Cave File:Inside Potocka zijalka.jpg, Inside Potok Cave

References

External links

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{{Authority control Limestone caves Caves of Slovenia Karawanks Stone Age sites in Slovenia Landforms of Styria (Slovenia)