Cotencher's cave
| Cotencher's cave
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| Location: | Neuchâtel , Switzerland | |
| Height : | 660 m | |
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Geographic location: |
551586 / 201601 | |
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| Overall length: | 18 m | |
The Cotencher cave, used in prehistoric times, was rediscovered in 1867 in the municipality of Rochefort in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland .
history
In the cave , first mentioned in 1523, cave bear bones and rubble were found, which aroused the interest of the geologist Auguste Dubois (1862-1923) and the paleontologist Hans Georg Stehlin (1870-1941). During the excavation carried out in 1916, they came across four meter thick layers of culture. The lower ones contained stone tools and an extremely diverse fauna that included at least 64 species. The cave bear was primarily represented, but also deer, cave lion, cave panther, lynx, horse, arctic fox, reindeer, wolverine, wolf and woolly rhinoceros.
A human upper jaw was discovered in 1964. During the Moustérien , between 50,000 and 40,000 BC The abri , which turns into an 18 m deep cave, was repeatedly visited by people in the 3rd century BC . The tools found are comparable to those of the Charentian culture in south-west France . At the height of the last glaciation, the place was apparently inaccessible. As the abundance of bones attests, Cotencher's cave was inhabited by bears between periods of human presence.
Traces of early history and a forging workshop from the late Middle Ages were also discovered. In Laténium of Hauterive stone tools and bones as well as a cross section of a soil sample from the cave are exhibited. The rock cave above the Areuse Gorge is located near the Neanderthal settlement there .
literature
- M. Egloff: Des premiers chasseurs au début du christianisme . In: Histoire du Pays de Neuchâtel . Volume 1. Hauterive 1989.
Web links
- Hervé Miéville / GG: Cotencher. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cynthia Dunning et al .: The time travel book: archaeological and historical excursions in the three lakes region and in the Jura. Swiss Society for Prehistory and Protohistory SGUF, Basel 2002, p. 139