Nicholas Cave

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Nicholas Cave

The Nikolaushöhle in rocks of the White Jura to the left of the Lauchert in Veringenstadt The entrance faces north and can be reached via a signposted footpath.

The Nikolaushöhle in rocks of the White Jura to the left of the Lauchert in Veringenstadt The entrance faces north and can be reached via a signposted footpath.
Location: Swabian Alb , Germany
Height : 657  m above sea level NN
Geographic
location: 		48 ° 10 '36.4 "  N , 9 ° 12' 43"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 10 '36.4 "  N , 9 ° 12' 43"  E
Nikolaushöhle (Baden-Württemberg)
Nicholas Cave
Cadastral number: 7821/003
Type: Karst cave

The Nikolaushöhle is a karst cave with Stone Age finds in the municipality of Veringenstadt in the Baden-Württemberg district of Sigmaringen in Germany .

The Laucherttal in the area of ​​Veringenstadt is - next to the Bad Urach area and the valleys of Ach , Blau and Lone  - one of the most important cave areas in the Swabian Alb . This applies to the number of caves, their importance for prehistoric research and for research into geological history.

Name of the cave

The Nikolaushöhle got its name because it was custom in ancient times that on the Sunday before St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) the youth of Veringenstadt gathered around a fire in this cave.

Other spellings and names were also Nicolaushöhle , Niklashöhle , Klosenhöhle , St. Klosloch , Bärenhöhle or Belsenhöhle (wrong reading of a handwritten note from 1862 = rock cave).

location

The former residential cave is located on the Swabian Alb, south of the old town of Veringenstadt, on the upper northern impact slope to the left of the Lauchert at an altitude of 657  m above sea level. NN . The narrow S-shaped river breakthrough lies in the tectonic grating zone of the Hercynian Hohenzollerngraben and the Lauchertgraben, which strikes the Rhine . By tectonic stress have crevices formed to numerous caves have widened. Around Veringenstadt, 34 caves are known in the rocks of the White Jura ζ1 ( lying bank limestone: Kimmeridgium , ki4).

From the lower bridge of the old town a path (An der Lohmühle) goes left along the Lauchert to the east. After about 300 meters, a signposted footpath leads steeply up to the cave entrance, which is freely accessible. There is an information board in the cave.

The geotope Nikolaushöhle has been designated as a culturally and historically valuable extensive natural monument ND 84371140003 in the natural area of ​​the Mittlere Flachalb since 1971 . As an archaeological site, it is a ground monument .

From the cave, a short ascent to the ridge of the cave roof is worthwhile. Here is an old, heavily desolated clover beech , which is designated as a natural monument. Due to the rocky location, the beech has difficult growing conditions and thus developed its special low-growing, sinuous shape. From here there is a wonderful view of the picturesque old town of Veringenstadt, surrounded by the Lauchert, with the Veringen Castle , the Peterskapelle , the St. Nicholas Church , the old city wall and the Göpfelstein cave .

description

The large cave entrance is oriented to the northwest. The cave is around 30 meters long and up to 50 meters wide, has a floor area of ​​over 300 square meters and a clear height of up to 20 meters. This makes it the largest Stone Age cave in Veringenstadt. Herb-like vegetation penetrates up to six meters into the interior of the cave on the rough rock walls, as the sunlight can penetrate far into the cave through the high entrance.

On the opposite side of the valley is the Göpfelstein Cave at the same altitude.

Emergence

The formation of the cave began at a crevice or rock fault. After the gap doubled, eight times as much water could flow through and a self-reinforcing effect occurs. Pure water only dissolves little lime , but with carbon dioxide from the air and from the humus of the soil, carbonic acid is formed in the water , which now has an aggressive effect on the limestone. By corrosion , the rock is soft and the cap rock of the cave falls down. Clay and iron minerals from the limestone remain as loam . At the end of the tertiary period (around 140 million years ago) the Nikolaushöhle was cut into by the Urlauchert .

Research history

Analogous to the research history of the Göpfelstein cave .

Adolf Achenbach had already mentioned the cave as "Nicolaushöhle" in 1856 and described it by its dimensions, later in the 19th century it was examined several times. Its importance as a Paleolithic , man-made place and used by cave bears was only recognized when Eduard Peters explored the area in 1934. He carried out the actual excavation between 1935 and 1937. His excavation work in the Nikolaushöhle was made more difficult by the sometimes huge demolition of the ceiling and the flooding of soil from the Alb plateau through the chimneys. Given its location on the northern slope, the soil, studded with boulders, forms a tough, hard-to-break clay mass. During his excavations in the Nikolaushöhle, Eduard Peters worked through three cubic meters of Pleistocene rodent layers in the sludge system he developed in the Lauchert. He saw several thousand skeletal parts.

Bone finds

Numerous skeletal remains prove that the Nikolaushöhle was visited by cave bears as hibernating quarters for thousands of years during the last ice age 120,000 to 10,000 years ago.

From the analysis of the bones it emerged

Fossils
Insect eater
Bats
Predators
Herbivores
Rodents
Lagomorphs

Proven cultural epochs

Aurignacien flint tools. Finds from the Göpfelstein cave and the Nikolaus cave in the Veringenstadt local history museum .

Settlement finds in the Nikolaushöhle show the following cultural epochs :

Moustérien / Paleolithic (approx. 120,000 to 40,000 BC)

The Paleolithic Age includes the stages of development of the Ice Age man, whose devices are made of flint in the older group and made of flint in the bone in the younger group. The various forms of the devices made it possible to subdivide individual cultures. The oldest form is the hand ax, a universal device carved out of the flint bulb. The hand ax culture is being replaced by a culture in which the cuts from the flint bulbs are reworked into special tools, but without creating solid shapes for them; The only thing that matters is function. The blade cultures form the younger cultural group. Now the flint lumps are prepared in such a way that narrow or wider, more or less rectangular chips (blades) can be cut from the remaining kernels, the intermediate products for the majority of devices. The perfection of the flint tools has reached its peak, the same applies to the bone tools, for which the reindeer antlers supplied the material. The hand ax, tee and blade cultures also have racially different representatives. The knockdown culture characterizes the Neanderthal man, while the bearers of the blade cultures are the Aurignac and Cro-Magnon humans .

Finds in the Nikolaushöhle:

  • Flint tools

Eduard Peters assumes that it was a group of people who must have been very close to the people from Petersfels in Hegau , since comparable pieces of jewelry made of coal were found there.

Aurignacia culture (approx. 40,000 to 31,000 BC)

During this time, humans ( Homo sapiens ) spread across large parts of Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The modern Aurignac man also seems to have rested in the Nikolaushöhle, perhaps only to follow the cave bears, numerous remains of which have been found.

Magdalenian culture (approx. 18,000 to 12,000 BC)

The finds were obtained from slurries, so that even the smallest split pleats are counted: 114 silices including 91 split pleats. The finds include blades with notches, scratches with notches, drill bits, center graver, corner graver , gravette tips , carbon beads, and a fragment of a reindeer antler hole stick (possibly a cult stick). In the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic this is a common fund subject. A hunting whistle made from reindeer phalanges (reindeer toe bones) was also found. The ammonites are small Hecticoceraten from the Upper Braunjura (the Balingen area?), Which have a natural perforation in the center. It is therefore not possible to determine whether they are trailers.

Neolithic (New Stone Age from approx. 12,000 BC)

During this time the transition from hunter and collector cultures to sedentary farmers with domesticated animals and plants took place.

After the character of a gray-yellow tuff layer, the cave must have been quite damp at that time.

It was not until the late Neolithic that small hordes of cattle-breeding settlers established themselves here and there on the plateau. Some of them were members of a mixed ceramic culture of the Rössen-Großgartacher type .

Since the Nikolaushöhle is very spacious, it was suitable for keeping domestic animals, which found good grazing grounds directly above the cave. As the scattering of the cultural remains and the location of a fireplace show, the people of that time settled in the front third of the cave. The cultural residues they left behind consist mainly of coarse, undecorated shards and finer goods with typical lattice and cut patterns of the Schussenried culture . A beautifully crafted rectangular ax (PI. IV, 2), a fragment of a similar piece, a pointed ax (PI. IV, 1) and the broken neck of a second ax of this type were found on stone tools. The excavation also revealed a flint arrowhead ( with traces of earth pitch) and two blade scrapers. With the departure of the Schussenried people, the cave remained uninhabited for centuries, throughout the Bronze Age.

Finds in the Nikolaushöhle:

  • pointy ax
  • Rectangular hatchet
  • Hammer ax

Bronze Age culture (approx. 2200 to 800 BC)

The strong settlement of the caves in Veringenstadt during the Late Bronze Age is probably related to the great displacements of peoples of this epoch in Central Europe, which also brought new immigrants from the Alb: the Urnfield people . Members of this tribe, in which the burial mounds presumably absorbed culturally and anthropologically, cattle-raising farmers, occupied the caves around Veringenstadt, which seemed to them less suitable for living than for sheltering their herds. The largest settlement, according to the amount of broken glass found, was in the Nikolaushöhle. The greater part of the pottery was safely made on the spot (a piece of hard-fired grout makes the presence of a pottery kiln likely). The late Bronze Age pottery can be divided into two groups, coarse and fine ceramics . The clay of the large storage vessels is made with coarse pieces of lime, that of the fine ware with finer Pleistocene sands. The sharp elaboration of the profiles, the uniform rounding of the vessel mouth and the thin walls of many of the fragments speak for the high ceramic skills of the potters of that time. A distinction is made between the following vessel types: large, medium-sized and small urns with sharply defined funnel necks (rarely urns with a cylinder neck), hemispherical bowls, bowls with sharply profiled, sweeping edges and small graphitized vessels. The ornamentation is purely geometric. As usual, simple finger impressions or tone strips with finger dabs and horizontal strokes dominate the storage vessels. In addition to simple incised ornaments, the smaller urns show comma-shaped impressions made with angular wooden sticks. Hanging triangles are rare, but often all kinds of grooved ornaments, on the coarser and the finer goods. These grooves on the fine ceramics are particularly precise. Their arrangement here is not only horizontal and garland-shaped, but also vertical, thus initiating a division of the vascular shoulder into metope fields . As usual in the Late Bronze Age, the exquisitely crafted ribbon handles of the vessels are firmly attached to the rim. Six spindle whorls should be mentioned , which are probably all from the Late Bronze Age in terms of shape and decoration. The main features of the late Bronze Age pottery in the Nikolaushöhle coincide with the finds from the Lochenstein near Balingen . They are essentially the same shapes, only that the hemispherical shells are more strongly represented in the Nikolaushöhle. The variety of shapes of the bowls is greater in the Nikolaushöhle. The cultural heritage of the Bronze Age burial mounds can be seen in the not infrequently occurring notch. Grooved and grooved decorations, horizontally or like a garland, are characteristic of the eastern of the two late Bronze Age style groups.

Of particular interest are the bronze finds in the Nikolaushöhle. There are two knives, a needle, three rings and a fibula fragment. The knife is typical for the urn field level (level B). The rings, the cross-section of which is triangular, belong to the same period; The magnificent Hohenneuffen jewelry pendants are made from similar rings. The (vase?) Head of the 22 centimeter long needle has unfortunately broken off; their age is certainly also from the Late Bronze Age.

The remaining caves around Veringenstadt were also occupied in this period, according to the fragments found: the nearby overhang of the sheepfold, the Göpfelstein and Annah caves, and the Brechfels.

Mention should also be made at this point of the large urn field frieze yard in Deutstetten, only one kilometer to the north .

Hallstatt period around 800 to 450 BC BC (older pre-Roman Iron Age )

In contrast to the mass of Bronze Age finds stands the small number of Early Iron Age remains. Only a few fragments of the Nikolaushöhle can possibly be determined there. The poor settlement of the Nikolaushöhlen during the Hallstatt period is probably due to climatic influences. For southern Germany, the Early Iron Age means a high point in the Atlantic climate, which means a sharp increase in precipitation. Heavy rains had to make the settlement of the Nikolaushöhle more difficult, the rugged roof of which is particularly permeable to water.

Celtic period (from approx. 480 BC to 0)

A new settlement of the Nikolaushöhle did not take place in the following La Tène period either . The Alb is only sparsely populated in the middle Latène levels, in contrast to northern Württemberg , which is densely populated with Celtic settlements. It was only in the late Celtic period (i.e. in the last century BC) that there were more settlements on the Alb. In the parts near the Danube, square entrenchments are built, which are interpreted as fortified, late Celtic farms. The comb and broomstick ceramics of these systems can also be found in many Alb caves. The Nikolaushöhle and the Göpfelsteinhöhle, in particular, provided a plentiful supply of ceramic remains from this period. In addition to shards with a coarse decorative line, the Nikolaushöhle also contained those with a striking fine line, the execution of which required a special instrument. Shortly before the end of the excavation in 1935, a spatula-shaped iron object was found in the Nikolaushöhle , the front edge of which appears to be serrated like a comb. A closer examination showed, however, that the perforation is only one-sided and not continuous, as is the case with a comb. This tool was reconstructed in iron and tests on leather-hard clay showed that fine comb-line ornaments can be made with it. A comparison showed that the potter's instrument must be present here, with which the decorative line on the shards was once done.

In addition to hand-made vessels, there is also the usual ware, which is fired very hard and leads to the pottery of the Roman provincial era. Within this group, in addition to the usual gray ceramics, light red shards with white painting stand out. These are painted goods from the late La Tène period , which were still in use in Roman times . Entire vessels of this type are known from Ebingen and Rottweil. The residents of the Nikolaushöhle were certainly shepherds in the late Celtic times, and their homesteads are likely to be located in the vicinity.

  • Spindle whorl
  • Combed knitwear from the late La Tène period
  • painted late Celtic shards

Roman culture

The economy of the Alb inhabitants has hardly changed after the Roman occupation. It is therefore not surprising that the descendants of the late Latène people continue to use the caves to shelter their cattle or even inhabit the caves themselves. They left behind the usual ceramic remains: yellow, red and gray consumer goods, pieces of mortars and terra sigillata . Siggilata remains are little known from Alb caves. Two dark red fragments from the Nikolaushöhle belonged to a bowl, the surface of which was decorated with depictions of birds. In addition to the dark red goods, which probably come from Rheinzabern , there were also light red pieces of East Gaulish origin. Furthermore, small fragments of a bowl decorated using the barbotine technique (?), As well as fragments of a stone pot (local name for talc ) and a Rhaetian folded cup.

middle Ages

After the Roman period, the Göpfelstein cave remained uninhabited for centuries, throughout the Alemannic period . In contrast, a large number of sherds could be assigned to the Middle Ages (11th – 12th centuries). The caves were still used as cattle sheds until the 19th century, i.e. until the decline of sheep farming on the Alb.

Lost property

literature
Prehistoric and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern
  • Eduard Peters: Pre- and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern 1935 . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 3. 1936. pp. 332-335.
  • Eduard Peters: Prehistoric and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern 1936 . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 4. 1937. pp. 275f.
  • Eduard Peters: Prehistoric and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern 1937 . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 5. 1938. pp. 358f.
  • Eduard Peters: Pre-historical and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern 1938 . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 6. 1939. p. 186.
  • Eduard Peters: Prehistoric and early historical activity report from Hohenzollern 1939 . In: Association for history, culture and regional studies of Hohenzollern (Hrsg.): Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte. Volume 7. 1940. pp. 118f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See weathering zone . In: Lexicon of Geosciences , Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg 2000.
  2. ↑ http://rips-dienste.lubw.baden-wuerttemberg.de/rips/ripsservices/apps/naturschutz/schutzgebiete/steckbrief.aspx?id=4379013000355
  3. ^ Erwin Zillenbiller : cultural landscape. Heritage and Mission . Ubstadt-Weiher, 1996, p. 24ff.
  4. ↑ Achenbach (1856), p. 434
  5. ↑ Rathgeber (2004)
  6. ↑ See Peters, Rieth (1936)
  7. ↑ See collections and museums of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)

Web links

Commons : Nikolaushöhle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files