Karain cave

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Entrance to the Karain Cave

The Karain Cave , also known as the Black Cave , is located about 27 km northwest of Antalya in the Turkish province of the same name at an altitude of 400 m above sea level on the slope of Sam Dağı near the village of Yağcı Köyü or Yağca. The entrance is about 100 m above the travertine plain, which was formed in the Miocene and was a lake in the Pleistocene .

Coordinates: 37 ° 4 ′ 40 ″  N , 30 ° 34 ′ 15 ″  E

Relief Map: Turkey
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Karain cave​
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Turkey

The stalactite cave consists of a complex of three large chambers, which are separated from each other by calcite walls , stalagmites and stalactites and connected by narrow corridors. Archaeological finds have been made inside and at the entrance to the stalactite cave .

Digs

The Karain Cave was explored from 1946 to 1974 by İsmail Kılıç Kökten from Ankara University . The excavations began in the infill layer in the entrance area. The work was continued at least until 2008 by Işın Yalçınkaya in collaboration with the University of Liège . The layer package in chamber E is over 10 m thick and consists of fluvial deposits , travertine layers and sandy - silty layers. The natural soil has not yet been reached, but towards the bottom (below layer V) anthropogenic deposits become increasingly rare. In chamber B there are layers from the Byzantine period to the Middle Paleolithic. The shift packages were named progressively according to geological ages (H = Holocene , P = Pleistocene )

  • H0: Byzantine
  • HI: late Roman and other finds
  • HII: handcrafted monochrome ceramic, blades made of radiolarite , some obsidian
  • HIII: late Chalcolithic
  • HIV: Chalcolithic, polychrome ceramics, millstones and axes

Dating

The excavations show that the cave was inhabited from the Acheuléen (about 400,000 years ago) through the Upper Paleolithic and Akeramische Neolithic to the ancient and Byzantine times (layer H0 in chamber B). Greek decorative panels and monograms on the outer walls of the cave also date from ancient times. They show that the place was also used as a temple. Kökten originally spoke of the old and middle Paleolithic layers and also reports hand axes, which, however, have not yet come to light in the more recent excavations.

Finds

Flint

Silices from the Middle Paleolithic layers date from 1766, including four Levallois cores from cuttings. Most of the cores are exhausted and no longer show any basic shape. 807 pieces (18%) have been retouched , scrapers predominate among the devices, followed by pieces with continuous lateral retouching and Moustier tips. Scrapers consist of basic forms in Levallois technique , mostly retouched in the Moustérien style. Some Moustérien hand axes were also found. A broken hand ax from Layer V.2 was classified by Kartal as a type of the Middle or Late Acheuleans.

The raw material for the Paleolithic artifacts was primarily made up of river pebbles made of radiolarite , which come from the upstream plain.

In the younger strata there were pebbles decorated with incisions.

Animal bones

There were bones of hippos, elephants, wild horses, onagers , wild cattle, but also red deer and fallow deer, goat, sheep, deer, cave bear , hyena, lion, lynx, wolf, fox, wild cat, badger, marten, porcupine and rhinoceros, as well found by birds. Human bones, including the jaws and teeth of Neanderthals and bones of Homo sapiens, are also among the finds. A human face was probably formed on a bone device, which is stylistically close to the Natufien , which may indicate a relationship with Palestine.

More finds

Ceramics, which are probably related to the Hacılar ware, originate from the Chalcolithic period .

Whereabouts of the finds

Most of the finds can be seen in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara and in the prehistoric hall of the Museum of Antalya, some parts can also be seen in the small museum on site at the foot of the mountainside.

Surroundings

In 1989, a team from the University of Tübingen made a test cut in the Öküzini Cave, 1.5 kilometers north-northeast , in order to take pollen and sediment samples as well as animal bones.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Marcel Otte, Işin Yalçinkaya, Ofer Bar – Yosef, Janusz K. Kozłowski, Jean-Marc Léotard, Harun Taşkiran, Pierre Noiret, Metin Kartal: The Anatolian Palaeolithic: data and reflections. In: British School at Athens Studies 3, The Palaeolithic Archeology of Greece and Adjacent Areas: Proceedings of the ICOPAG Conference, Ioannina, September 1994 (1999), p. 73 ( JSTOR 40960215 , accessed August 26, 2015).
  2. ↑ a b c Metin Kartal: Karain Mağarası Kazıları 2007. Excavations at the Karain Cave in 2007 . In: Anadolu Akdenizi Arkeoloji Haberleri / News of Archeology from Anatolia's Mediterranean Areas No. 6, 2008, p. 24
  3. ^ Metin Kartal: Karain Mağarası Kazıları 2007. Excavations at the Karain Cave in 2007 . In: Anadolu Akdenizi Arkeoloji Haberleri / News of Archeology from Anatolia's Mediterranean Areas No. 6, 2008, pp. 23-26.
  4. ^ Metin Kartal: Karain Mağarası Kazıları 2007. Excavations at the Karain Cave in 2007 . In: Anadolu Akdenizi Arkeoloji Haberleri / News of Archeology from Anatolia's Mediterranean Areas No. 6, 2008, pp. 23-24.
  5. ↑ a b c Angela Minzoni-Deroche: Le Paléolithique Moyen du Taurus. In: Paléorient 14/2, Colloque Préhistoire du Levant II, Processus des changements culturels (1re partie) 1988, p. 156 ( JSTOR 41492307 , accessed on August 26, 2015)
  6. ↑ İsmail Kılıç Kökten, Karain in Türkiye Prehistoryasin Yeri. Türk Cografiya Dergesi 18-19, pp. 22-23, 17-27, quoted from Otte et al. 1999
  7. ↑ Angela Minzoni-Deroche: Le Paléolithique Moyen du Taurus. In: Paléorient 14/2, Colloque Préhistoire du Levant II, Processus des changements culturels (1re partie) 1988, p. 155 ( JSTOR 41492307 , accessed on August 26, 2015).
  8. ↑ Angela Minzoni-Deroche: Le Paléolithique Moyen du Taurus. In: Paléorient 14/2, Colloque Préhistoire du Levant II, Processus des changements culturels (1re partie) 1988, Table 1 ( JSTOR 41492307 , accessed on August 26, 2015).
  9. ↑ Angela Minzoni-Deroche: Le Paléolithique Moyen du Taurus. In: Paléorient 14/2, Colloque Préhistoire du Levant II, Processus des changements culturels (1re partie) 1988, p. 157 ( JSTOR 41492307 , accessed on August 26, 2015).
  10. ↑ Marcel Otte, Işin Yalçinkaya, Ofer Bar – Yosef, Janusz K. Kozłowski, Jean-Marc Léotard, Harun Taşkiran, Pierre Noiret, Metin Kartal: The Anatolian Palaeolithic: data and reflections. In: British School at Athens Studies 3, The Palaeolithic Archeology of Greece and Adjacent Areas: Proceedings of the ICOPAG Conference, Ioannina, September 1994 (1999), pp. 73-86 ( JSTOR 40960215 , accessed August 26, 2015).
  11. ↑ Marcel Otte, Işin Yalçinkaya, Janusz Kozłowski, Ofer Bar-Yosef , Ignacio López Bayón, Harun Taskiran: Long-term technical evolution and human remains in the Anatolian Palaeolithic. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 34, number 4, ISSN  0047-2484 , 1988, pp. 413-431, doi : 10.1006 / jhev.1997.0199 .
  12. ↑ Gerd Albrecht, B. Albrecht, H. Berke, D. Burger, J. Moser, W. Rähle, W. Schoch, G. Storch, H.-P. Uerpmann, B. Urban: Late Pleistocene and early Holocene Finds from Öküzini: A Contribution to the Settlement History of the Bay of Antalya, Turkey. In: Paléorient 18/2, 1992, p. 129

Web links

Commons : Karain Cave  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files