Lone Valley
The Lone Valley is located between Stuttgart and Munich in the Alb-Donau district and in the Heidenheim district , Baden-Württemberg . The Lone stream, which gives it its name , has its source in Urspring and, after 30 kilometers, joins the Hürbe at Hürben , which flows into the Brenz . Since the Lone rarely carries water over long stretches, the Lone Valley is one of the longest dry valleys in Germany. In 2006 it was therefore recognized as one of the 77 most important national geotopes in Germany.
geography
vegetation
The slope areas are mostly free of trees and from a reed canary grass marked -Röhricht. The mostly wide floodplain is used as intensive grassland. The valley slopes are forested almost everywhere.
history
200 million years ago, today's Lone Valley was covered by a tropical sea, the corals of which formed the bright rocks that are still visible today. After the retreat of the Jurassic Sea , flowing water masses formed the former Ur-Lone in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, which initially flowed into a subtropical sea near the Alps, later at the height of today's Lone Valley, in which sharks , whales and other marine animals romped about. In the valley of this Ur-Lone a rich animal world was able to spread.
Even in the Tertiary, the Ur-Lone valley was an extension of the original Neckar . At that time the Albtrauf had not shifted that far back, so the Neckar flowed significantly higher. Instead of turning to the northwest at Plochingen, the Neckar led over the Ur-Lone valley into the Danube. It was only later that the current bend in the river near Plochingen was created by regressive erosion from the lower course of the Neckar. This diverted the river towards the Rhine. The Lone became a dry valley.
In the Paleolithic Age , the Lone Valley became a settlement for Homo sapiens and the place where the earliest works of art were found. The lion man was discovered as early as 1939 in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave near Asselfingen in the Lone Valley, but only decades later, after the fragments had been put together, the significance of the find became clear. In addition to the lion man, other statues and objects from the paleolithic culture of the Aurignacia were found in caves in the Swabian Alb (for example the Hohlen Fels ) , which, with an age of 30,000 to 40,000 years, represent the oldest known human works of art.
Caves in the Lone Valley
There are several caves in the Lone Valley.
Foal house
The foal house is an accessible cave and is located close to the Lone between Langenau , Bernstadt and Neenstetten in the Alb-Danube district. The cave got its name from the arrangement of the two cave mouth holes in a nearly 20 meter high rock, which with a little imagination reveals a foal.
Since the foal house is a popular destination, well-kept paths lead to the cave. At the cave is a shelter with a barbecue area. The forest area around the cave is Bannwald .
In the foal house, as in other caves in the Lone Valley, evidence of primeval settlement was found.
Bockstein Cave
The Bockstein cave is located near the district road 3022 between Bissingen ob Lontal and Öllingen in the area of the municipality of Rammingen in the Alb-Danube district . It is an approximately 15 m × 20 m large hall in the rock, around 50 m above the bottom of the Lone Valley. The large opening on the valley side was only created during the excavations. There are also several small side niches in the hall or in the immediate vicinity (Bocksteinschmiede).
Several excavations between 1873 and 1956 found not only tools from the Middle and Neolithic but also the skeletons of a woman and an infant. The skeletons are dated to around 6200 BC. Dated to 50,000 to 70,000 BC, other finds. The Bockstein Cave is one of the oldest settlements in southern Germany.
There is a refuge above the cave. In 2017, the cave was included in the UNESCO World Heritage as part of the World Heritage Site Caves and Ice Age Art of the Swabian Alb .
Hohlenstein
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The Hohlenstein (historically also Hohler Stein ) is located on the southern slope of the Lone Valley between Bockstein and Vogelherd caves and is made up of several, e.g. T. closed caves together:
- Bear cave (approx. 89 m long), is named because of the many bear bones that were found in the cave.
- Barn (approx. 69 m long)
- Kleine Scheuer (10 m wide rock hole)
In 1939 the approximately 35,000 year old figure of the lion man from the Aurignacia was found in the Hohlenstein barn .
Vogelherd Cave
The Vogelherd Cave, located on the 1168 road between Bissingen ob Lontal and Niederstotzingen , has three mouth holes. The two large, 2.5 to 3.5 m high mouth holes are connected by a 40 m long curved passage and are called the Great Vogelherd Cave . The Kleine Vogelherdhöhle is very narrow at the entrance and approx. 40 m long. The passage between the small and the large cave is buried. During archaeological excavations in 1931 the so-called "Vogelherdfiguren" were found, which are among the oldest small works of art known to man.
The barbecue and resting area on the hill above the cave was dismantled and no longer exists. The Charlottenhöhle is located near the confluence of the Lone and the Hürbe .
environment
In the lower Lone Valley there are indications of possible climate change. Did the Lone z. For example, until about 15 years ago it was still regularly watered, but today it is mostly dry. The groundwater level at the measuring point between Bissingen and Öllingen on Kreisstrasse 7307 is temporarily 12 m deep.
See also
literature
- Südwest Presse, Klemm + Oelschläger (Ed.): On the way - Lonetal. Geology, archeology, flora and fauna, leisure, info. Klemm + Oelschläger, Münster, Ulm 2011, ISBN 978-3-86281-023-9 .
- Hansjürgen Müller-Beck (Ed.): Ice Age Art in the South German-Swiss Jura. Beginnings of art. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1674-6 .
- Joachim Hahn , Hansjürgen Müller-Beck, Wolfgang Taute: Ice Age Caves in the Lone Valley. Archeology of a landscape in the Swabian Alb. Theiss, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0222-2 .
- J. Hahn, H. Müller-Beck, Wolfgang Taute : Ice Age Caves in the Lone Valley. Stuttgart 1985.
- Gustav Riek : The ice age hunter station at Vogelherd in the Lone Valley. Volume I: The Cultures. Leipzig 1934.
- Gustav Riek: The mammoth hunters in the Lone Valley. Hess, Ulm 2000, ISBN 3-87336-248-1 .
- Jürgen Werner: The ice age hunters in the Swabian Alb. Hess, Bad Schussenried 2008, ISBN 978-3-87336-359-5 .
- Laura Niven: The palaeolithic occupation of Vogelherd Cave. Tuebingen 2006.
- Nicholas Conard, Ernst Seidl (ed.): The Mammut vom Vogelherd. Tübingen finds of the oldest preserved works of art. Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9812736-0-1
- Nicholas Conard: The Bird Herd Horse and the Origins of Art . Tübingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-9817947-7-9
Web links
- The Lonetal portal
- Landscape Museum : Archaeological Lexicon
- showcaves.com: Vogelherdhöhlen
- Museum of Ancient Cultures, Hohentübingen Castle: Collection of older prehistory
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robert Wetzel , Gerhard Bosinski (ed.): The Bocksteinschmiede in the Lonetal. Part I. Publications of the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Stuttgart, A. Stuttgart 1969 series, pp. 75-132.
- ^ Johann Daniel Georg von Memminger: Description of the Oberamt Ulm. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart, Tübingen 1836, p. 17.
Coordinates: 48 ° 34 ′ 53.5 ″ N , 10 ° 12 ′ 56.9 ″ E