Eyeglass cavity
| Eyeglass cavity
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 Eyeglass cavity |
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| Location: | Weiler , Baden-Württemberg , Germany | |
| Height : | 600 m above sea level NN | |
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Geographic location: |
48 ° 24 '19 " N , 9 ° 46' 40" E | |
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| Cadastral number: | 7524/13 | |
| Geology: | White Jura, border area Delta-Epsilon | |
| Type: | Dome cave | |
| Lighting: | no | |
| Overall length: | 23 m | |
The glasses cavity (formerly Zwickerhöhle ) is the remains of a former horizontal cavity in Akhtal at Weiler in Alb-Donau Baden-Württemberg . It is an important Upper Palaeolithic site of prehistory in Baden-Württemberg .
Geographical location
The glasses cavity located on the northern edge of the Achtals in a Jurassic - rock massif of the rock labyrinth , about 60 m above the valley, and m on the 600th ü. NHN .
The cave can be reached via a partially paved hiking trail.
topography
An approximately 6 m long corridor, up to 3.5 m high and 6.5 m wide, slopes gently up into a 17 m long and 16 m wide, dome-shaped cave hall. The 6 m high cave ceiling has two openings that were created when the cave partially collapsed around 30,000 years ago and gave the cave its name. The circular, southern window has a diameter of 2.5 m, the approximately oval, northern window is 3.4 m long and 2.4 m wide. In the east wall there is the Bärennische , an approximately 5 m³ large cavity, which was backfilled after the archaeological excavations were completed in 1963 and can only be made out vaguely today. In the north-western corner of the cave, a chimney-like washout tapers upwards and opens into an approximately 17 cm wide gap in the ceiling. During the Pleistocene, large amounts of red-brown clay entered the cave through this smoke hole .
Research history
After unsuccessful probes by Robert Rudolf Schmidt (1906), Peter Goessler (1911) and Albert Kley (1951), large parts of the eyeglass cavity were excavated and scientifically evaluated between September 1955 and October 1963 under the direction of the Tübingen prehistorian Gustav Riek . In eleven campaigns, Riek uncovered eleven profiles in which he was able to distinguish between XXII layers and recover numerous stone and bone tools , ivory jewelry , human skeletal remains and ceramic shards.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Tübingen archaeologist Anne Scheer succeeded in proving the simultaneous settlement of the Brillehöhle, Hohle Fels and Geißenklösterle during the Gravettian period, as flint artifacts from the gravettian horizons of the various sites could be put together .
Since various areas of the cave have not yet been excavated, the cave entrance is closed by a grille to protect against robbery and vandalism .
Finds
Aurignacia : In layer XIV, which is up to 0.85 m thick , the two oldest artefacts of the eyeglass cavity were found with two broken bone tips , one of which is possibly a bone tip with a split base . Since no other Aurignacian tools or fireplaces were found, it can be assumed that the cave was not inhabited by humans at that time and that the spearheads were possibly brought in by a hunted, dying cave bear , as numerous bone remains of this species in the immediate vicinity suggest.
Gravettia : Most of the finds were recovered in Layer VII. In addition to 52 tools from animal bones, reindeer antler and mammoth - ivory more were found here than 1000 stone tools such as blades , scrapers , graver and impact stones. 90% chert tubers were used as the raw material , the rest consists of jasper or radiolarite , all three materials being available in different colors. More than 80 artefacts could be addressed as pieces of jewelry, including numerous teardrop-shaped pendants made of ivory, beads made of tubular bones, pierced animal teeth and notched bone rods.
In addition to several fireplaces, some of which were laid out over a large area, the remains of two dry stone walls - so-called stone housings - could be exposed in this horizon , which were piled up as a foundation for canopies made of animal skins, which made it possible to significantly reduce the space to be heated in the cave.
Magdalenian : The inventory of layers VI to IV comprised 57 bone tools, including spearheads, single- and double-row harpoons , bone needles , a drumstick and a short perforated rod . Over 1100 lithic tools could be identified and analyzed.
In layer IV, almost fifty human skeletal remains were found on an area of 4 m², which can be assigned to at least four individuals, including the almost completely preserved left lower jaw of an 8 to 10-year-old child, as well as pieces of ribs , teeth , and phalanges of hands and feet , Parts of shoulder blades and fourteen skull fragments from which the frontal bone of a 40 to 60 year old man could be reconstructed. Since many bones had sharp-edged fracture surfaces and clear cut marks and were discolored dark by storage in layers of ash, Riek recognized parallels to the krapina finds and did not rule out cannibalism as the cause of their condition. Today it is assumed that these are the remains of a secondary burial .
In the northern and western border area of the cave, about 30 cm high stone blocks, the cave sediments highly compressed in their environment due to frequent occurrence and numerous found four used as a seat flint and chert -Absplissen and core pieces was covered. These razor clubs each had a small fireplace, several stone anvils and were well lit due to their proximity to the northern opening in the ceiling.
Neolithic and Bronze Age : In the heavily mixed upper layers II and I, Neolithic as well as Early and Late Bronze Age, ceramic vessel and wall fragments could be detected ( Rössen culture , stab ceramics and urn field culture ).
Cave forecourt and entrance
Mammoth ivory pendant
Notched bullet tip
Mammoth ivory pendant
Reindeer antler drumstick
literature
- Nicholas J. Conard , Michael Bolus, Ewa Dutkiewicz, Sibylle Wolf: Ice Age Archeology on the Swabian Alb Kerns Verlag, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-935751-24-7 , pp. 153–156.
- Luc Moreau: Geißenklösterle. The Gravettia of the Swabian Alb in a European context. Kerns Verlag, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-935751-11-7 , Chapter 3: The Gravettia of the eyeglass cavity, pp. 135-176.
- Hans Binder, Herbert Jantschke: Cave guide Swabian Alb. DRW-Verlag, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2003, ISBN 3-87181-485-7 , p. 143.
- Gustav Riek: The Palaeolithic of the eyeglass cave near Blaubeuren (Swabian Alb), part I. Verlag Müller & Gräff, Stuttgart 1973. ISBN 3-87532-055-7 .
- Gustav Riek: The Palaeolithic of the eyeglass cave near Blaubeuren (Swabian Alb), part II, The Jungpleistocene animal bone finds from the eyeglass cave, Verlag Müller & Graff , Stuttgart 1973. ISBN 3-87532-056-5 .
- Georg Hiller , Stefanie Kölbl (Ed.): Welt-Kult-Ur-Sprung , Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ulm 2016, ISBN 978-3-7995-1168-1 (on the ice age art of the Alb, German and English)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Gustav Riek: The Palaeolithic of the Glasses Cave near Blaubeuren (Swabian Alb) Part I & II . Müller & Gräff, Stuttgart 1973.
- ↑ Raw material procurement patterns in the Gravettian of Hohle Fels cave ( Memento des Originals from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on May 2, 2014. (PDF)
- ^ Conard, NJ, Bolus, M., 2003. Radiocarbon dating the appearance of modern humans and timing of culutural innovations in Europe: new results and new challenges. J. Hum. Evol. 44, Fig. 7
