Oeger cave
The Oeger cave is located in the Steltenberg nature reserve in the Hohenlimburg - Elsey district of Hagen ( North Rhine-Westphalia ). In 1933 reindeer bones were found in the cave . The entrance on the “Oeger Stein” rock face above Mühlenbergstrasse is closed.
history
The Oeger cave on the Lenne in Hohenlimburg was visited as early as 1860 by Johann Carl Fuhlrott (1803–1877), the discoverer of the Neanderthal man , and described in 1869 in his well-known publication about the “caves and grottoes” in the Rhineland and Westphalia. Already at that time the forecourt and the entrance area of this cave were largely destroyed by blasting for the road construction and for the neighboring quarry , so that the original appearance was completely changed. The Oeger cave was located in the area where the Nahmer stream flows into the Lenne, which flowed directly past the former entrance portal. Prior to the destruction of the entrance, the cave was apparently difficult to reach for humans around 1800, as can be seen on contemporary views. The fact that the Oeger cave was not only visited in prehistoric times, but also in the Middle Ages and early modern times, is proven by various ceramic shards from the 13th to 18th centuries. But it was not they that aroused the researchers' interest, but rather the prehistoric and early historical relics. Numerous bone finds of Ice Age animals have been known from the Oeger cave since the 19th century. 1928 here who discovered Herner Urgeschichtler Karl Brand (1898-1974) at least one stone artifact and numerous bones. The only major excavation that followed in 1932 brought up the remains of antlers from numerous reindeer and bones from z. B. cave bear , cave hyena , mammoth , giant deer and woolly rhinoceros unearthed . Some finds also indicate the use of Stone Age people, such as stone tools, fragments of vessels from the Neolithic and ceramic remains from the pre-Roman metal ages .
The antlers of well over 500 reindeer were recovered from the Oeger cave. The dating of several antler remains using the radiocarbon method revealed two ages of around 15,000 and 31,000 years ago. According to this, these reindeer antler remains came to the cave at different stages of the last Vistula Ice Age , but clearly belong to the Upper and Late Paleolithic . Even today, the female reindeer in the northern latitudes shed their antlers in spring, and the majority of the finds in the Oeger Cave are the shedding poles of female or juvenile reindeer. The question of how so many antlers got into the cave even led to local speculations about a cult site of Paleolithic reindeer hunters, which, however, cannot even be scientifically proven here as a weak evidence. However, the numerous remains of antlers were hardly related to speculative rituals of the Ice Age people, whose presence in the Oeger cave is proven by a few stone tools, pieces of waste and the rare fragment of a barb tip (harpoon) made from reindeer antlers.
The explanation for the occurrence of numerous remains of reindeer antlers is likely to be far less speculative. Because traces of biting and gnawing on the remains of the antlers indicate that they were probably predominantly and also at different times, as indicated by the radiocarbon dates mentioned, including cave hyenas , which were detected in the fossil material found in the cave through bones and teeth are dragged into the cave. The cave probably also served as a hyena nest during the Ice Age, which was by no means unusual, but has also been documented in many other caves.
The antler remains recovered from the Oeger Cave provide important evidence that reindeer apparently crossed the river valleys and the plateaus in the region in large herds and in seasonal changes in the late Ice Age. During the spring reindeer migrations, the Paleolithic hunters set up their camps during the reindeer migrations in the vicinity of these fixed migration routes, pastures and gathering points, which were probably also located at natural river crossings over the Lenne and Ruhr , in order to protect the animals on their ascent into the Intercept low mountain ranges. The spacious lower Lennetal, which opens to the north to the Ruhr valley and the Westphalian lowland, forms a naturally shaped entrance gate into the south-Westphalian mountainous region. Because of this location, the region is likely to have had a certain importance for the migration of the herds of animals, but also especially for the hunting economy of the mobile hunters.
Several investigations of the now secured and monitored cave area by professional archaeologists since 2004 have shown that despite the less systematic investigation in 1932 and further illegal excavations as well as the destruction of the entrance with a concrete wall in 1976, undisturbed sediments are still present. Thus there is a prospect of further exploration for this important cave site.
literature
- Karl Brandt: The Öger cave near Hohenlimburg. In: Jahreshefte für Karst- und Höhlenkunde , Vol. 22, 1961, pp. 285–290.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.plettenberg-lexikon.de/bergbau/mk/oege.htm
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/geschichtehagen/photos/a.956461211032911/956461327699566/?type=1&theater
- ↑ Michael Baales , Ralf Blank , Eva Cichy: From the Stone Age to the Roman Empire - A journey through time through the history of settlement in the Hagen area , Klartext Verlag Essen 2010, p. 55
- ^ Ralf Blank / Stephanie Marra / Gerhard E. Sollbach: Hagen history of a city and its region , Klartext Verlag Essen 2008, pp. 52–53
- ^ Ralf Blank / Stephanie Marra / Gerhard E. Sollbach: Hagen history of a city and its region , Klartext Verlag Essen 2008, pp. 20-30
Coordinates: 51 ° 21 '2.5 " N , 7 ° 34' 27.4" E