Kesslerloch

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Kesslerloch near Thayngen in July 2019
Interior

The Kesslerloch is a cave near Thayngen in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland that was visited in prehistoric times . It is located in the Herblingertal at the southeast foot of the Reiat plateau. The cave is approx. 200 m² and is divided by a stone column. Presumably reindeer hunters used 15,000 to 11,000 years BC BC ( Upper Palaeolithic , Magdalenian culture ) the cave as a shelter during the summer months. The location in a narrow valley was also favorable for a hunting station, similar to the location of the Petersfels .

The cave was placed under state protection in 1902 with the forest property and the surrounding meadowland.

Excavation work

On December 4, 1873, the realteacher Konrad Merk, together with his colleague D. Wepf and two students, dug for the first time in the Kesslerloch. A year later he carried out the first digs. The results were published in 1875 in the "Mitteilungen der Antiquarian Gesellschaft Zürich" (Volume XIX, Issue 1). Jakob Nüesch , who discovered the Schweizersbild cave in 1894 , carried out further excavations in 1893, 1898 and 1899, and in 1902 and 1903 Jakob Heierli dug after further finds. The last drilling took place in 1980.

The first finds were hardly recorded systematically; some were traded or sold among the excavators. Ludwig Leiner acquired the finds from the first excavation in 1875 for the Rosgarten Museum he founded in Konstanz, which is why the “Seeking Reindeer” is also on display there.

  • Excavations by Jakob Heierli ...

  • ... 1902 and 1903

Two incised drawings of a fox and a bear turned out to be forgeries: In 1875, the auxiliary grave Martin Stamm had commissioned his nephew Konrad Bollinger to carve the animals into a bone based on a template from the book "The animal gardens and menageries with their inmates".

Found objects

Finds from the Kesslerloch

During the excavations, bones of 53 different animal species such as mammoth , reindeer , woolly rhinoceros , ibex and chamois were found. Human bones were not discovered. Stone implements made from local flint and around 200 projectile points were also found, as well as tools and implements made from antlers , bones and ivory . A skull of a domestic dog found in the cave in 1874 has meanwhile been dated to an age of 14,100 to 14,600 years. It is one of the oldest evidence of the domestication of the wolf in Central Europe.

The Kesslerloch became famous through the finds of small art such as pendants and perforated rods. Since many researchers did not yet trust the people of the Stone Age to art, the first artistically designed finds were considered a sensation. Particularly well-known is the incised drawing of the so-called " Seeking Reindeer" (previously called "Grazing Reindeer") on a piece of reindeer antler, probably a fragment of a hole rod . It was discovered by the geologist Albert Heim in the presence of Jakob Messikommer on January 4, 1874. In addition, pieces of jewelry made of mussels, animal teeth, snails and pitch coal were found.

Exhibitions

Finds from the Kesslerloch are exhibited in the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen . The diorama of the Kesslerloch from 1939 was developed by the museum technician Hans Wanner in collaboration with the German set designer Juri Richter. Although it no longer reflects the latest scientific research, it was a milestone in museum design.

The perforated rod with the "Seeking Reindeer" is owned by the Rosgarten Museum in Konstanz . A copy is issued, the original is kept in a safe. Further copies of it are in the Museum Allerheiligen and in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, where other finds are exhibited.

Origin of name

The cave owes its name to the Yeniche (formerly called "Kessler" in Eastern Switzerland), who in early modern times collected pots and other cooking utensils (= kettles) in the surrounding communities, repaired them in the cave and then sold them again. According to the research report by the discoverer Konrad Merk, Kessler families wandering around at the beginning of the 19th century are said to have found shelter here.

literature

Web links

Commons : Kesslerloch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ residential quality thayngen
  2. ↑ scrap-at-kesslerloch .
  3. ↑ Photo and description on the website of the Rosgarten Museum
  4. ^ Konrad Merk, Realthrer, cave find in the Kesslerloch near Thayngen (Canton Schaffhausen), Zurich 1875, p. 4

Coordinates: 47 ° 44 ′ 43.4 "  N , 8 ° 41 ′ 37"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred ninety-four thousand one hundred and nineteen  /  289 066