Anna Chapel Cave
| Anna Chapel Cave
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 Anna-Kapellen-Höhle in Veringenstadt. |
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| Location: | Swabian Alb , Germany | |
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Geographic location: |
48 ° 10 ′ 49.2 " N , 9 ° 12 ′ 30" E | |
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| Cadastral number: | 7821/1 | |
| Type: | Karst cave | |
| Overall length: | 8 meters | |
The Anna-Kapellen-Höhle (also Annakapellenhöhle or Göpfelsteingrotte ) is a karst cave . The former residential cave is located in the municipality of Veringenstadt in the district of Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg , Germany . The cave takes its name from the chapel of St. Anne's Chaplain, which stood nearby until the 18th century.
Emergence
Around three million years ago (end of the Tertiary ) the Anna-Kapellen-Höhle was cut and exposed by the Urlauchert . Today the bed of the Lauchert lies around 30 meters lower in the floodplains.
location
The cave is located northwest of the city of Veringenstadt, to the right above the Lauchert and about 100 meters northwest of the entrance to the Göpfelstein cave . The free access to the cave is about 10 meters south of the access road to the ruins of Veringen Castle , but it is not signposted. The Laucherttal in the Veringenstadt area is - next to the Bad Urach area and the Blautal - one of the three most important cave areas in the Swabian Alb . This applies to the number of caves, their importance for prehistoric research and for research into geological history. The Nikolaushöhle and the Göpfelsteinhöhle, which are very close by, have a similar meaning . A stele in front of the cave commemorates the St. Anna Chapel, which was built on this site in 1515. The first caretaker was the painter Peter Strüb from Veringenstadt. In 1817 the chapel was demolished. The stele was designed by Ilse Wolf from Inneringen and inaugurated on May 1, 1998.
description
The Anna Chapel Cave is eight meters long, six meters wide and two meters high. With only about 10 square meters of usable floor space, it is the smallest of the Veringenstadt Stone Age caves. It is located in the massive rocks of the White Jurassic ζ1 ( lying bench limestone: Kimmeridgium , ki4). The cave entrance faces north. Archaeological excavations in the cave were first found in 1909 by Robert Rudolf Schmidt from the Geological Institute of the University of Tübingen and in 1935 by Oberpostrat a. D. Eduard Peters instead. Peter's test excavation from 1934 provided evidence of paleolithic cultural remains. After the excavation campaign from July 25 to October 20, 1935, the cave was considered completely cleared. The soil had been partly removed and partly ransacked by earlier excavations, and pristine sediment layers could no longer be discovered.
The geotope Anna-Kapellen-Höhle has been designated as an extensive natural monument ND8437049 in the natural area of the Middle Area Alb since 1971 . As an archaeological site, it is a ground monument .
Proven cultural epochs
Settlement finds from the Anna-Kapellen-Höhle show the following cultural epochs : Neither the whereabouts of the finds nor the documentation of the excavations by Robert Rudolf Schmidt are known.
Only a few pieces of bones from wild horses and reindeer were found in the Anna Chapel Cave .
Magdalenian culture
In the Anna-Kapellen-Höhle the cultural layer was largely destroyed by earlier excavations, so that Eduard Peters was only able to recover remains. Characteristic flint tools, blades, a center graver, a knife with the back pressed off and the same device with a saw-like cutting edge. In addition, the fragment, presumably a charcoal trailer, the only charcoal still found in Peters' Anna Chapel Cave. These outwardly inconspicuous pieces were undoubtedly left unnoticed in the earlier excavations. Eduard Peters' excavations produced a total of 77 silices , 18 of which were tools or fragments (flint tools for cutting, scratching, piercing and sawing), a processed Gagat fragment , form and function not reconstructable, fragment of a cut disc-shaped piece of coal (jewelry pendant).
Neolithic (Neolithic)
The Anna-Kapellen-Höhle was also occasionally visited by hunters from the Neolithic Age, as can be seen from the individual find of a broken hammer ax. In the opinion of the prehistorian Paul Reinecke, axes of this type are an integral part of the late Neolithic Altheim culture . There are parallels to this from the Münsinger Alb and from Dietenheim an der Iller . A fragment of a second ax with a cylindrical neck was found near the cave. Other battle ax finds are known from Benzingen , Veringendorf , Hausen an der Lauchert and Kleinengstingen . The ax finds accumulate conspicuously within the middle Alb in the Lauchert valley.
Bronze Age Culture : Early Bronze Age
As in the other caves around Veringenstadt, broken fragments also show the settlement of the cave in the Early Bronze Age.
Pre-Roman Iron Age : Latène culture and Hallstatt culture
The cave yielded shards of coarse-tone bowls which, according to the profile, can be assigned to the early Iron Age. The weak settlement of the Veringenstadt caves in the Hallstatt period is probably due to climatic influences. For southern Germany, the Early Iron Age means a high point in the Atlantic climate, which means a sharp increase in precipitation.
Roman culture
A piece of the rim of a Rhaetian beaker ( Roman Empire , approx. 2nd century AD)
middle Ages
After the Roman period, the caves remained uninhabited for many centuries, throughout the Alemannic period. In contrast, a large number of sherds can still be assigned to the Middle Ages (11th – 12th centuries). Until the 19th century, that is, until the decline of sheep farming on the Alb, the caves were used as cattle sheds and were used as in prehistoric times.
Finds and whereabouts
The entire documentation and almost all finds have been lost since 1945. Only a few silices can be found in the Hohenzollerisches Landesmuseum in Hechingen and a pre-Roman shard in the Veringenstadt local history museum on the upper floor of the town hall in Veringenstadt.
literature
- Hans Binder , Herbert Jantschke: Cave guide Swabian Alb. Caves - springs - waterfalls . 7th completely revised edition. DRW-Verlag, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2003, ISBN 3-87181-485-7 , p. 251 .
- Friedrich B. Naber, Ludwig Reisch, Christian Züchner: The 22nd meeting of the Hugo Obermaier Society in 1980 in Sigmaringen with excursions to the upper Danube valley, the Hegau and the Federsee region . In: Hugo Obermaier-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Quaternary. International yearbook for research into the Ice Age and the Stone Age. Born in 1981 (31/32) . Pp. 217-229.
- Eduard Peters: The Paleolithic cultures of Veringenstadt (Hohenzollern) . In: Prehistoric Journal . Volume 27 . Berlin 1936. pp. 173-195, here pp. 190f.
- Thomas Rathgeber: The Quaternary animal world of the caves around Veringenstadt (Swabian Alb) . In: Laichinger Höhlenfreund 39 (1) . Laichingen 2004. pp. 207–228, here p. 209.
- Jürgen Scheff: Eduard Peters (1869-1948). Archaeological exploration of the caves of the Upper Danube Valley and its side valleys . In: Hohenzollerischer Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Journal for Hohenzollerische Geschichte. Volume 42, in the whole series Volume 127 , Kohlhammer and Wallishauser, Sigmaringen 2006, pp. 91–204, here: pp. 156f.
- State Institute for the Environment, Measurements and Nature Conservation Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Geotopes in the administrative district of Tübingen: Profiles of the district of Sigmaringen , 2007, p. 49.
Individual evidence
- ^ Erwin Zillenbiller : cultural landscape. Heritage and Mission . Ubstadt-Weiher 1996, p. 24ff.
- ^ According to another statement, 1910
- ↑ a b c Eduard Peters , Adolf Rieth : The caves of Veringenstadt and their significance for the prehistory and early history of Hohenzollern . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 3 . 1936. pp. 240-264.
- ↑ Franz Werz lends his own cave finds permanently . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from December 30, 2005
Web links
- Profile of the extensive natural monument in the LUBW's list of protected areas