Small barn

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Small barn

Entrance of the small barn in the rock face of the Rosenstein

Entrance of the small barn in the rock face of the Rosenstein

Location: Rosenstein , Swabian Alb , Germany
Height : 645  m above sea level NN
Geographic
location:
48 ° 47 '19.4 "  N , 9 ° 56' 39.3"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 47 '19.4 "  N , 9 ° 56' 39.3"  E
Little Scheuer (Baden-Württemberg)
Small barn
Cadastral number: 7225/10
Geology: White Jura - Lower Mass Limestone
Overall length: 26 meters

The Kleine Scheuer (formerly also Little House ) is a cave on the southwestern edge of the Rosenstein below the Rosenstein castle ruins above Heubach in eastern Baden-Württemberg . Another cave nearby is the three- entrance cave located just 300 meters to the east .

description

The cave lies under the southwestern edge of the mighty Rosenstein rock. The entrance is 135 meters above the valley floor and is open to the southwest. It can be reached from the ruins via footpaths and stairs. The cave rises slightly towards the rear. It is warm in winter because heat builds up in the background. The cave receives this advantage of its own favorable climate in particular through the structure of the cave interior. From the almost rectangular entrance, a 13-meter-long hall climbs gently into the interior. At the end of the hall, a three-meter-high rock barrier seals off the rear part of the cave and forms a climate threshold there on the one hand and a sediment trap on the other. The cave narrows there and leaves only a narrow and low passage free. The cave bears who had to squeeze through here have rubbed the left cave wall smooth with their fur. Behind this barrier the ground drops steeply and then begins to rise again towards the narrower and lower interior of the cave.

history

In the summer of 1912, H. Maier discovered fossil bones in the cave. The first prospecting in 1916 yielded bits of bits from wild horses and cave bears, several flint tools and a fragment of a bone harpoon . In the same year Robert Rudolf Schmidt and the discoverer undertook a one-week investigation during which, according to his statements, the cave was systematically excavated. The finds came to the prehistoric institute of the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . The focus of Schmidt's excavations was on the rear part of the cave, as a natural threshold prevented the sediments from being washed out of the cave.

Cave plan of the small barn with excavation sites

In 1916, the Heubach doctor Franz Keller began researching the Rosenstein. The first thing he did was look back in the small barn and he managed to recover a few more stone tools. The finds are now in Heubach Castle . Keller also published a report by Schmidt in his book "Rosenstein's Urgeschichte". From this, the following profile can be read, but unfortunately from today's perspective, it is incomplete:

layer Finds
0.20 m depth Clay with fine flint tools from a presumed younger Magdalenian . Remnants of reindeer , arctic fox , mountain hare , collar lemming and ptarmigan .
0.40 m depth Clay with blades of Aurignacien : teeth and bones of reindeer, wild horse , cave bear and cave hyena
0.40 m - 0.80 m depth Bear shift. In the upper section of this clay deposit there were mainly wild horse teeth, and downwards numerous bone fragments and teeth of cave bears of all ages. ("Bärenhorst")
0.80 m - 1.00 m depth Brown, inclusion-free cave clay, cave floor

Like many of the caves in the Swabian Alb , the little barn was a bear hatch in the early Würm glacial period , i.e. at the time of the Neanderthals . The bear cut - a chafed area in the rock - at the narrow point of the cave is further proof of this.

During his excavation, Schmidt lifted the filling of the inner part of the cave in 5 layers of 0.30 m each. The finds from layers 3 and 4 belong to the Aurignacia, those from layers 1 and 2 to the Magdalenian. Since this classification does not correspond to the actual inspection horizons, a clear allocation of the artifacts is only possible with reservation.

The Aurignacien therefore includes 17 pieces with the layer designation II and IV of the Tübingen collection, in detail: 3 cores, 2 scratches, 1 high-backed keel scraper, 1 inclined blade, 5 partly retouched blades, 1 sickle / scratch, 1 drill with broken tip, 1 Bullet point made of bone with groove, 1 base of a bullet point, double beveled from ivory, 1 ivory stick in 2 parts.

As a leading form for the Aurignacien, only the large high-backed keel scraper can be addressed without a doubt. However, the entire habitus suggests that it belongs to the older Upper Palaeolithic.

The holdings of the Tübingen collection, generally assigned to the Magdalenian, with the class names I and II, include 8 cores, 5 large scratches, 5 retouched blades, 10 retouched edges, 8 unretouched blades, 2 notched blades, 1 graver, 4 retouched cuts, 3 unretouched cuts, 5 knockoffs with broken edges (Kyroretouching), 1 lamella, 2 core edges, 3 pieces of debris, 4 boulders, one of which has a polish-like surface, 1 retoucher made from a flat sandstone, 1 flat sandstone slab with traces of red chalk, 1 bone slab, 1 bullet point with a groove bevelled on both sides.

literature

  • Hans Binder , Herbert Jantschke: Cave guide Swabian Alb. Caves - springs - waterfalls . 7th completely revised edition. DRW-Verlag, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2003, ISBN 3-87181-485-7 , p. 55 .
  • Claus Oeftiger, Eberhard Wagner: The Rosenstein near Heubach . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0449-7 , pp. 48-60.
  • Hans Maier: The paleolithic cave "Kleine Scheuer" on the Rosenstein . In: Mannus , Journal for German Prehistory, Volume 28, Leipzig 1936, pp. 235–252.
  • Franz Keller: Rosenstein's prehistory . Verlag des Schwäbischer Albverein , Tübingen 1921, pp. 3–16

Individual evidence

  1. Franz Keller: Rosenstein's prehistory . Publishing house of the Swabian Alb Association, Tübingen 1921.