Balver cave
| Balver cave
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 The Balver Cave - hand-colored before 1900 |
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| Location: | Germany | |
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Geographic location: |
51 ° 20 ′ 21 ″ N , 7 ° 52 ′ 19 ″ E | |
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| Type: | "Culture cave" | |
| Discovery: | First mentioned in 1690 | |
| Lighting: | electric | |
| Overall length: | 138 meters | |
| Length of the show cave area: |
138 meters | |
| Particularities: | cultural event | |
The Balver cave is in Hönnetal in Balve in North Rhine-Westphalia location karst cave , which is used for cultural events. According to the well-researched archaeological finds, the cave is one of the most important sites of the cultures of the Middle Paleolithic in Europe (hence the name "cultural cave"). The forecourt to the cave consists of cleared sediments.
description
The cave consists of a large tunnel-shaped hall with two branches branching off from it. They bear the names of two scientists: the geologist Ernst Heinrich von Dechen and the anatomist and natural scientist Rudolf Virchow . One of the tributaries has two side passages that lead to the surface. The cave extends 70 meters into the rock. At the highest point near the entrance it is twelve meters high (measured from the current level) and at the widest point inside it is 18 meters wide. To compensate for the height, an approximately 15 meter wide three-step staircase was built inside.
Emergence
The cave lies in the mass limestone of the Upper Middle Devon . It was created by karst weathering during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods .
Unambiguous explanations of the origin of the barrel vault are still lacking. One assumption is that during the last Ice Age ( Pleistocene ) large areas were loosened from the ceiling by frost blasting.
The most obvious assumption is that through two tributaries of the cave, so-called vortex channels, surface water from surrounding heights and plateaus flowed into the interior of the cave for thousands of years. In the process, loose rock was loosened and ground up by the water and the side walls were sanded down as a result. At the same time, erosion debris was washed away. Emery and scratch marks can still be seen on the cave walls today. This approach is plausible against the background that the surrounding mountain ranges were around 800,000 years ago at an altitude of around 1000 m, but the valley level was around today's level.
The barrel vault may have been created by the effects of water and erosion up to the beginning of the Vistula Ice Age . In the period that followed, it was filled with sediment, especially cave clay. In the cave, several layers of sinter formed over the sediments , which can still be seen today on the cave walls.
history
Not only prehistoric , but also early and high medieval ceramic shards were discovered in the cave deposits . The cave was therefore accessible at that time. It was first mentioned in 1690. In the map of Westphalia from 1645 there is only an unspecific note in Latin Antrum vastissimum incogniti recessus (for example: 'desert cave', 'unexplored abyss').
Originally, around 15 meters high sediments that almost reached the cave ceiling blocked the portal. Access to the vault and the rear side arms was therefore difficult. These sediments were almost completely cleared out by Balver farmers, who had recognized their particular suitability for fertilization purposes, and distributed on the surrounding fields. Many valuable archaeological relics were therefore later found lying open in the surrounding fields . Local researchers in Balve (including Heinrich Falke and Josef Pütter) specialized in this source.
In the first half of the 18th century, the city fathers set up a "cave treasury" to strengthen the community finances. The price for a load of clay climbed to the then high price of 1.50 marks. The Lehmberg was thus removed in a few years and the barrier to the inside of the cave lifted. By 1840, the cave was largely cleared, as the carefully crafted engraving in The picturesque and romantic Westphalia by Levin Schücking and Ferdinand Freiligrath from 1841 shows.
During the Second World War , fixtures for an armaments factory caused a lot of damage in the previously essentially natural cave interior. The Gothaer Waggonfabrik , which was engaged in the construction of aircraft (including flying wings ), set up a "bombproof" cave with prisoners of war and forced laborers - mainly Russian and French women who were housed in the Sanssouci camp under unworthy conditions - in 1944 Supplier company. The cave was walled up for this purpose. A connecting tract to the administration building (today Haus Sauer) was dug.
Under the British military government , the cave was threatened with demolition. With reference to the high archaeological importance of the cave - perhaps also because of the success in question - it could literally be averted at the last minute.
In 1997 the Dechenarm was preserved and fortified with funds from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia .
exploration
In 1815 the cave was first examined "for its condition" and roughly measured. In 1843 the mining authorities in Bonn and Siegen carried out the first prospecting. Mine director Noeggerath began the first excavations around 1844. With the discovery of the Neanderthal man (1856, Johann Carl Fuhlrott ), the peculiarity of the caves in the Hönnetal became a household name among experts. Dozens of geologists, archaeologists, biologists, prehistorians and hobby researchers prospected or dug in search of “new knowledge”. It was collected and registered what was important for the respective field. Reports in trade magazines and newspapers aroused the curiosity of those who were looking for and wanted to market “old stones and bones” for private collections. The damage caused by the “digging up” work of amateur archaeologists in the caves of the Hönnetal cannot be estimated.
Documented explorations were carried out in 1870 in the left branch by Rudolf Virchow , in the right with two side aisles in 1871 by Heinrich von Dechen excavations . Extensive excavations were carried out in the 1920s by the geologist Julius Andree and in 1938 by the teacher Bernhard Bahnschulte . These excavations did not meet today's scientific standards of archeology. Only the excavation of Bahnschulte provided information that can still be verified today.
During digging in 1938, H. Werli discovered the tip of an ivory structure that one year later exposed the railway shoulder (length 4.4 m). Restorers reconstructed the original size and shape of the find. The result were replicas of 4.2 and 4.4 m in length, which were exhibited in Münster and Balve. The fossil originals were lost in World War II. It has been known since 2003 that it could be the tusk of a forest elephant , as the inward curvature of the tooth typical of mammoths is missing. Mammoths, on the other hand, did not have tusks, but instead used their teeth to churn the surface of the ground for food. In the 1950s, the archaeologist Klaus Günther examined the cave to check excavation results from 1938. This was the first systematic scientific dig. In 2002, the Westphalian Office for Ground Monument Preservation - Olpe branch (Michael Baales) - carried out scientific probes (i.e. trial cut or excavation probe ) and excavations in the cave. For the first time, these investigations also included the previously unexplored forecourt, which consists of heaped up sediments, some of which were also caused by people when they "examined" the cave or wanted to make it usable.
The archaeological excavations revealed countless remains of ice-age animals, including mammoths , woolly rhinos and reindeer , as well as thousands of stone artifacts. Based on the excavation findings, valuable conclusions can be drawn about the climate during the Ice Age , the way of life of Stone Age people and their diet.
Human skeletal remains were also discovered in the cave. A small skull fragment that was subsequently discovered in the unhorizoned finds was dated to an age of 10,400 years by radiocarbon analysis in 2003 . Together with the skeletal remains from the early Mesolithic that were discovered in the leaf cavity in Hagen in 2004 , this is the oldest evidence of modern humans in Westphalia.
archeology
Since the Middle Pleistocene, the cave served as a hiding place for an early species of cave bear ( Ursus deningeri ). At the time of the Neanderthals , in the Middle Paleolithic during the Eem warm period , the cave served as a camp for mobile groups of hunters for the first time. The climate at that time was warm and even hippos must have lived in the rivers in the area . During this time the cave seems to have been used as a building for the first time by cave hyenas. During the Vistula Ice Age, the cave was still used as a retreat by Neanderthals, cave bears and cave hyenas. Numerous remains of prey such as woolly rhinos, woolly mammoths and deer were also found in the caves. How intensively the cave was used by people during the Vistula Ice Age has been shown by several archaeological investigations since the 1920s. At this time, large parts of the cave had already been cleared and the archaeological finds contained in it had been destroyed.
Deep excavation cuts in the entrance area of the cave (mainly in 1939 under Bernhard Bahnschulte) opened up the layers of more than seven residential phases from the Middle Paleolithic. They began with the late Acheuléen around 100,000 years ago and reached through the developed Micoquien around 75,000 years ago to the Moustérien around 40,000 years ago.
In the inventories of finds from the older section of the Vistula Ice Age , certain techniques can be identified after detailed scientific investigations. They provide information on stages of development and settlement by groups of people who used different techniques when working with stone tools. In recent years, recent research has also revealed numerous tools made from bone and mammoth ivory in the old excavations. Unfortunately, the bone finds were not carefully measured, labeled and assigned to the respective find layers during the excavation in 1939.
The upper find layers in the cave, which came from the Younger Paleolithic to the Mesolithic to the pre-Roman Iron Age , were destroyed as early as the 19th century; the sediments containing the finds ended up as fertilizer on the surrounding fields.
In the vicinity of the Balver Cave, in the Volkringhausen Cave in the Hönnetal, stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic and a small inventory of typical stone tools from the early Upper Paleolithic were found . Such finds from the time before the beginning of the high glacial period of the Vistula Ice Age 24,000 years ago, large parts of northwestern Europe were not habitable for humans for around 10,000 years, are rare in Westphalia . In this high glacial, hyenas and cave bears were also missing in northern Germany. When the climate became warmer, people resettled the cave, but the cave hyena and the cave bear no longer appeared.
In the immediate vicinity of the cave there was a Mesolithic open-air site on a river terrace of the Hönne . Typical stone tools and a part of a human skull from the early Mesolithic were also discovered in the Balver Cave .
Located at the entrance of the Hönnetal in Balve , which narrows like a canyon in the middle and lower part , the large cave apparently had a special attraction for the ancient and Mesolithic hunters. In the Hönnetal and the neighboring Lennetal there are numerous other Stone Age sites in caves and cliffs .
The use of caves in the pre-Roman metal ages was particularly intensive in the region. During the Iron Age , there were ritual acts that were related, among other things, to funeral rites. According to the current state of scientific research, it cannot be determined whether this also led to cannibalistic acts, as assumed for other caves in the Hönnetal , as claimed in the 19th century and speculated to this day by hobby local researchers and lacks any scientific basis.
The numerous sites document the intensive use of the Sauerland karst landscape between Hagen and Balve during the Middle Paleolithic , in the more recent Paleolithic and in the Mesolithic . The caves were also used in the Neolithic and pre-Roman metal ages. This situation in Europe is comparable to the Swabian Alb and the Dordogne .
Whereabouts of the finds
The archaeological finds from the Balver cave have been widely scattered since the 19th century. They ended up in several museums in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as in some private collections. Finds from the Balver cave can be found in museums in Altena, Arnsberg, Bonn, Dortmund, Iserlohn and Menden, among others. The finds from the former Balve Local History Museum, which kept numerous old finds, are now in the Museum for Prehistory and Early History , which opened in 2006, in the Luisenhütte in the Balver district of Wocklum.
Most of the rich and leveling finds from the cave are kept in the Westphalian Museum of Archeology in Herne and in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the Werdringen moated castle in Hagen .
There the finds are classified in a scientifically proven context and presented with a lot of information - in the moated castle Werdringen even with dermoplastics of a mammoth, reindeer and woolly rhinoceros as well as in the Westphalian Museum of Archeology in an impressively staged cave situation.
Cultural use as a festival hall
The cave has been used for music and theater performances since 1922 because of its atmosphere. The Balver Höhle Festival has been organizing the Balver Fairy Tale Weeks here since 1991 .
The Balver Schützenfest traditionally takes place here once a year . After the cave was cleared by Balver farmers in the 19th century, the local rifle festival was relocated to the cave, which the Balvers use as a weatherproof festival hall to this day. The city of Balve has leased the Balver cave to the St. Sebastian rifle brotherhood . This has the right of use and organizes the rental. However, the ownership structure has not been bindingly clarified.
After 2000, in July 2012 Die Fantastischen Vier recorded an MTV unplugged album for the second time in the cave.
The Balver cave has also been used for public viewing since 2006 . On October 3, 2011, the 9th Radio MK Run led through the middle of the cave.
In April 2015 the cave was used as a recording location for the 2nd event show of the 12th season of the RTL format Deutschland sucht den Superstar .
Outside of events, the Balver Cave is only accessible to groups of visitors by prior arrangement.
Fabulous
The name of the town of Balve corresponds etymologically with the place of residence of the dwarves (Ballofa), which Wieland taught the blacksmithing trade, as passed down in the legendary Thidrek saga . According to legend, these should have lived in a mountain. Ballova is the oldest recorded name of Balves.
See also
literature
- Klaus Günther: The Palaeolithic finds of the Balver cave (soil antiquities Westphalia; Bd. 8). Verlag Aschendorff, Münster 1964 (also dissertation, University of Münster 1964).
- Olaf Jöris: The Middle Paleolithic of the Balver Cave. Stratigraphy and form studies, geology, paleontology and prehistory and early history between Lippe and Wupper . In: Archäologie im Ruhrgebiet , Vol. 1 (1993), pp. 65–84.
- Olaf Jöris: Pradniktechnik in the micoquien of the Balver cave. In: Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt , Vol. 22 (1992), pp. 1-12, ISSN 0342-734X .
- Lutz Kindler, Olaf Jöris, Michael Baales, Barbara Rüschoff-Thale: The Balver Cave. Old finds - new results. In: Günter Horn, Hansgerd Hellenkemper, Gabriele Isenberg, Jürgen Kunow (eds.): From the beginning. Archeology in North Rhine-Westphalia (writings on the preservation of monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia; Vol. 8). Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne 2005, pp. 318–321, ISBN 3-8053-3467-2 (catalog of the national exhibition of the same name, Römisch-Germanisches Museum , March 13 to August 28, 2008).
- Dieter W. Zygowski : Bibliography on karst and cave studies in Westphalia including the Bergisches Land . Westfälisches Museum für Naturkunde, Münster 1988, ISBN 3-924590-17-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Balver cave by Hans-Hermann Hochkeppel: The cave should be blown up.
- ↑ The finds from these and other caves in Westphalia discovered in earlier times can be made accessible via Zygowski (1988).
- ↑ a b C.G. Diedrich: Periodical use of the Balve Cave (NW Germany) as a Late Pleistocene Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss 1823) den: Hyena occupations and bone accumulations vs. human Middle Palaeolithic activity . In: Quaternary International. 233 (2011) pp. 171-184.-
- ↑ Official website of the operator of the Balver Höhle (Schützenbruderschaft St. Sebastian)
- ↑ The Fantastic Four again unplugged in the cave . In: Welt Online , July 25, 2012. Accessed August 1, 2012.