Die Rote von Mauern is a venus statuette in limestone, 27 000 years old, covered with red ochre when found at the Weinberghöhlen caves near Mauern, Bavaria. Lothar Zotz, on 24th August 1948, found the 72 mm tall limestone venus figure on the outer slope between cavities two and three of the Weinberghöhlen.
Late summer photo shoot of my Neolithic Venus. I took the piece to the “Côa” river valley, a place that seemed to be of utmost importance scince at least 20 000 years. Thousands of rock engravings have been found on this site, no one knows what the meaning of such a high concentration of engravings is but… it feels right to bring my sculpture over here. It’s also delicious to finalize a piece with a glorious landscape photo shoot.
The Hinds of Chaffaud, found in the Grotte de Chaffaud (Savigné, Vienne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine). It is from the Upper Paleolithic Period, made from a reindeer foot-bone, and is 13.2cm in length.
This engraving is of two hinds (female deer), with very precise details of the heads. The almond-shaped left eye is emphasized with fine hatching. A sign depicting a wing is engraved in front of the hooves of each hind, but its meaning is unknown.
To reach the only place in the world where cave paintings of prehistoric marine life have been found, archaeologists have to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean off southern France.
Then they have to negotiate a 137-meter (yard) natural tunnel into the rock, passing through the mouth of the cave until they emerge into a huge cavern, much of it now submerged.
Three men died trying to discover this “underwater Lascaux” as rumors spread of a cave to match the one in southwestern France that completely changed the way we see our Stone Age ancestors.
Lascaux—which Picasso visited in 1940—proved the urge to make art is as old as humanity itself. Read more.
The Megaloceros, also known as the Irish Elk or Giant deer, is an extinct species of deer that lived throughout all of Eurasia. Most people however associate the Megaloceros with Ireland or other parts of Western Europe because most of its fossils have been found in Western Europe.
The name Megaloceros is Greek for ‘great horn’ and it is quite a justified name because this animal was huge with a magnificent pair of antlers. The shoulder height was about 2,1 meters tall but they could stand 3 meters tall with their antlers included. In comparison, their closest living relatives, the Fallow deer, have a shoulder height of about 85-95 centimeters.
The Megaloceros roamed around Europe and Asia from the early pleistocene, about 1,4 million years ago until their extinction around 11,000-8,000 years ago. Their antlers were absolutely gigantic and could reach a width of 3,7 meters. Just like other deer species, they would shed these mega antlers each year.
Why did this species of deer disappear? It was assumed for a long time that modern humans are responsible for their extinction but that theory is now no longer plausible. Homo Sapiens and the Megaloceros co-existed for several thousands of years and even though our ancestors might have hunted them, paleolithic modern humans did not mass slaughter animal species. The now accepted theory is that climate change combined with the effort of growing these huge antlers each year, which required the intake of lots of minerals, eventually led to the decline of this species. The climate change led to the growth of new species of plants throughout Eurasia which meant that the diet of the Megaloceros changed drastically. These new plants did not contain as much minerals as the plants previously eaten by the Megaloceros which led to the weakening of bones and reduced antler growth. This would have led to more accidents and thus a reduced reproduction until the species eventually became extinct. Basically, their antlers became so big, that the Megaloceros was no longer able to support it.
Images of the Megaloceros survive until this very day in paleolithic cave art and the discovery of their bones. The most spectacular finds are being done around the borders of Doggerland, mainly around modern day Ireland. Irish fisherman Raymond McElroy found a complete intact skull with antlers during one of his fishing trips. This is how the animal got the nickname, Irish elk.
Here are images of: Painting of a Megaloceros by Mihin89, Reconstructed Megaloceros in the Naturalis, Leiden photographed by myself, Raymond McElroy with the skull he found, Cave art of the Megaloceros found in the Lascaux cave,
The Chauvet cave is located in southeastern France in the department of Ardèche. This cave is extraordinarily well preserved making it one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world. The paintings inside this cave are also one of the oldest pieces of art ever created, almost twice as old as the Rouffignac cave art.
The paintings inside the cave, and the cave itself, were discovered not too long ago. On sunday, 18th december 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire explored the area on the left side of the Ardèche river. All three of them were experienced in speleology and believed that there might be some underground caverns present in the area. They were right, the three did discover an underground cavern which was full with hundreds of paintings, it was truly a magnificent discovery.
Hundreds of animal paintings belonging to at least 13 species have been discovered thus far. What is interesting, these paintings are quite different from paintings found in other prehistoric caves. Normally animals such as mammoths, rhinos, deer and aurochs are depicted on paleolithic cave paintings but the Chauvet cave is full with animals such as: horses, cave lions, bears, hyenas, rhinos and wisents.
Not only does this cave contain depictions of animals, several abstract markings, hand prints and even some possible shamanic figures, most notably a humanoid figure with a bison head which resembles the Minotaur a bit. There is even a drawing that can perhaps represent a volcano erupting. Another amazing aspect of the Chauvet cave art is that the animals were sometimes put into a ‘scene’ such as animals hunting, fighting for territory or mating rights.
Who were exactly the humans who created all of these paintings? Through dating techniques it is determined that the cave was inhabited during two periods of time. The oldest period dates back to 37,000-33,5000 years ago and thus it were humans belonging to the Aurignacian culture who were partly responsible for the art. The second period, 32,000-27,000 years ago, was during the Gravettian period. The paintings in this cave are at least 30,000 years old and were made by the first anatomically modern humans in Europe.
Not only paintings were found inside of this cave. Footprints of cave bears were discovered, fossilized bones of animals such as cave bear skulls and ibex skulls. The most interesting of these finds are perhaps the footprints of a young child and a wolf walking next to each other. If both the wolf and child walked there at the exact same time, it could mean that the domestication of the dog happened a lot earlier than previously thought.
The cave itself is closed off to the public since its discovery in 1994. This is done in order to preserve the paintings inside as other caves which are open to the public, such as Lascaux, show signs of damage by growing mold produced by humans. This is also the reason why the paintings inside are so incredibly well preserved. The cave itself has been sealed off since the paleolithic era until 1994, no human has stepped inside during that period of time, preserving the past inside.
It is however still possible to visit the images and experience the ambience of being in a cave. A gigantic life-sized replica of the cave has been built a few kilometres away from the real cave. The reproduced cave has the same atmosphere as a real cave with sounds, humidity, temperature, lighting and silence. This allows us to visit and experience the paleolithic cave ambience without damaging the real paintings.
The El Pindal cave is located in Asturias, Spain and contains about 20 paleolithic artworks. The paintings inside this cave are a bit older than the Rouffignac cave, they are dated back to two periods during the paleolithic: 22,000 years ago and 17,000 years ago. What makes this cave especially special is the presence of quite a unique depiction of a woolly mammoth, that is how the cave earned its Spanish nickname ‘Elefante Enamorado’, the elephant in love.
The paintings inside this cave were discovered in 1908 by a local archeologist named Hermilio Alcade del Rio. The cave itself is about 600 meters long in length, the first 300 meters is opened up for visitors. Even though the paintings were discovered in 1908, only recent research has revealed the age of the works. Unfortunately not all of the 20 cave paintings are visible to the naked eye. The El Pindal cave has deteriorated quite a bit throughout the centuries due to climate changes.
The paintings that are still visible show the images of horses, a salmon, a red deer, abstract symbols, a bison and the most notable of them all, a woolly mammoth with a shape inside of it that looks like a heart. The appearance of a mammoth painting came as quite the surprise to researchers as depictions of mammoths are very rare in modern day Spain. It is thought that early modern humans in modern day Spain viewed the wild horse as a more sacred animal than the mammoth, while in modern day France the mammoth seemed to have been the most important spiritual animal.
Of course we can not know the exact reason why there is a heart-shaped figure inside the mammoth painting. It is also unknown and doubtful if early humans used the same symbol for a heart as we do today. Even though it is tempting to believe that this mammoth was drawn by people who adored the animal, it is more likely that this is actually a depiction of a wounded woolly mammoth.
Interestingly, the cave doesn’t contain any traces of habitation so it seems that early humans have used this cave solely for religious reasons. What kind of ritual would have involved drawing a mammoth with this strange heart-shaped symbol? Was it perhaps drawn by a hunter hoping for an easy hunt? Or was our first assumption right after all and an early human drew this mammoth as a symbol of endearment? We will never know..
Here are photos of: The cave art and entrance of the El Pindal cave.
The Rouffignac cave is a cave located in the department of Dordogne in France and is also known as the cave of the hundred mammoths thanks to its 255 cave paintings of which 62% represent a mammoth. The cave itself is big, it has over 10 kilometers of underground passageways and shafts that lead to even deeper levels not fully explored. In total, 12 kilometers of the cave has been explored and visitors can take a tour on a train that will take them about 2km far into the cave.
Earliest mentions of the cave dates back to 1575 when writer and painter François Belleforest described strange paintings and footprints of various animals in his work ‘Cosmographie Universelle’. During the 19th century, the cave became a tourist attraction because of the paintings but nobody yet realised that these paintings were actually made during the paleolithic era.
It wasn’t until the 1950’s when several researchers (Romain Robert, Louis-René Nougier, Charles and Louis Plassard) entered the cave and noticed that the paintings inside were of great historical value. In 1957 the cave became a listed site and it was finally confirmed that the art inside, is in fact prehistoric in nature and thus of incredible archeological value.
The art inside the cave is not the oldest art found in Europe. The art of Rouffignac is dated back to about 13,000 years ago from the Magdalenian culture, in comparison the art of Chauvet cave is about 30,000 years old. What is quite fascinating is the fact that 62% of all the paintings, 158 in total, represent a mammoth. There are 29 depictions of bison, 16 of a horse, 12 of an ibex, 11 of a rhino, 6 of a snake, 4 of a human, 1 of a bear and 14 abstract paintings.
Some of the art has been made in quite difficult positions inside the cave, it’s amazing to think that humans were able to explore this cave 13,000 years ago and make these pieces of art. There must have been a reason behind all of this art because no one would enter this cave that deeply to create art in pitch black and dangerous surroundings in prehistoric times, even with all of our current gear and knowledge humans wouldn’t even do this for fun in the 21st century. The possible spiritual meaning behind cave art still remains a mystery yet an incredibly fascinating topic to explore.
Why is there such an abundance of mammoth cave art in Rouffignac? We actually have no idea why. Perhaps our ancestors viewed the woolly mammoth as a particularly sacred animal, maybe their spiritual beliefs were based on the spirit of the mammoth. These are just wild guesses because in truth, it is impossible to find any archeological evidence inside this cave that explains the reason why there are so many depictions of a mammoth. One thing that is certain is that the mammoth continues to fascinate human beings until this very day, I myself got a tattoo of a woolly mammoth based on art found inside this cave.
The Vindija cave is located in the Donja Voca municipality in Croatia and is a rich archeological site. Several remains of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens have been found here. The most unique aspect of this is the fact that these Neanderthal remains were the primary source for the first attempt to sequence the full genome of the Neanderthal DNA.
The cave itself consists of 13 levels and dates back to 150,000 years ago. During the first half of the 20th century, the cave was excavated and the remains of several animals appeared. Between 1974 and 1986 a more thorough and extensively research was conducted in this cave which led to the discovery of over 100 pieces and bits belonging to hominins such as us, Homo Sapiens, and Neanderthals in 4 of the 13 levels of the cave and countless of other animal bones.
In total the bodies of four Neanderthal individuals were discovered and excavated in two levels of the cave, level G3, the lowest level containing human remains which dates back to around 45,000-38,000 years ago and G1 a level which dates back to around 34,000-32,000 years ago. Modern humans were found in level F (31,000-28,000 years ago) and level D (less than 18,500 years ago).
Now this leads to an interesting question, did modern humans and Neanderthals live together in this cave? In 2017, researchers from the Oxford radiocarbon accelerator unit researched the remains of the Neanderthals by using a new technique. This technique involves using AMS ultrafiltration on hydroxyproline which has been extracted from the Neanderthal samples. To explain this more easily, the sample is put into an accelerator in which the ions of the sample are accelerated and then passed through a magnet so that a detector can then record the amount of C14 ions.
The AMS dating technique shows that the Neanderthals are older than 44,000 years, this is about 8000 years older than the first arrival of modern humans in the cave so we now know that both species did not intermix.
In the 2010’s several DNA researches were conducted on the Neanderthal remains. In 2010, scientists were succesfull in making a first draft of the Neanderthal genome based on mainly the Neanderthal remains found in the Vindija cave. In 2018 it was discovered that all four of the Neanderthals were genetically closest to each other than to any other Neanderthal found thus far. Modern humans living right now also share more DNA with the Vindija Neanderthals than other Neanderthals such as the Altai found in Siberia.
Here are images of: Entrance of the Vindija cave, Neanderthal remains from the cave, Reconstructino of Neanderthals living in the cave,
Sungir is the name of an archeological site in Russia, slightly north east of Moscow, that was discovered in 1955. The discovery was an accident as local digging from clay pits eventually led to the discovery of an ancient human settlement and burial site. The site has been dated back to somewhere around 33,000BC and is therefore a real treasure trove for researchers researching the lifestyle of early European homo sapiens.
What makes the Sungir site especially fascinating is the discovery of extremely extravagant burials. One example is a buried male, who died somewhere between the age of 35-45. It is not certain how he died but he probably died quite suddenly from an injury in his neck. He was buried with elaborate decorations including 3,000 beads made of mammoth ivory, fox teeth and ivory bracelets. It took early humans about 40 minutes to make just one ivory bead so imagine how much time they spent making 3,000 of them.
Two other richly decorated graves were found, which belonged to two adolescent children. These two were placed together in a grave with an adult femur bone. Both children were also decorated with thousands of mammoth ivory beads, red ochre, bracelets, fox teeth (they would have needed to slay at least 20 foxes for this burial), mammoth ivory spears, disks and pierced antlers.
This site is extremely important because it gives us clues into the spiritual lives of our earliest European ancestors. There has to be of course a reason why these three individuals were buried with such riches. If you count the man-hours of all the found decorations, it would be at least 10,000 hours. Why were these people buried with all of these items?
Several theories about the reason why they were buried like this exists, sadly it is impossible to be absolutely sure about a theory since these ancient people haven’t written anything down. One theory suggests that these individuals were part of an ancient ritualistic sacrifice. Perhaps they were sacrificed to the landspirits for certain blessings, it would explain the extreme amount of jewelry and unique burial style.
Another theory suggests that these three individuals were of a high status, perhaps the adult male was the chief of the tribe and suffered from a hunting injury that ultimately cost him his life, his high status could be the reason why he received so many burial gifts but it doesn’t explain why the two children were also buried with such rich gifts.
It wasn’t until 2017 when scientists finally fully sequenced the DNA of the two children, the adult male and the adult femur bone. All four individuals are male but none of them are direct family members of each other so the children were not the high status offspring of the buried adult male. This would mean that the theory of a possible human sacrifice seems more likely than the theory of high status burials.
One important detail that I want to add is the fact that both the children and the adult male show physical abnormalities in their remains. This might perhaps be the reason why they were part of a ritual, if the ritual theory is correct, and why they were given such an odd burial. Perhaps they were viewed as gifted people thanks to their disabilities. One of the children, a 10 year old boy, has femurs which are unusually short and the other boy, 12 years old, shows an abnormality in his upper jaw.
There is still so much to learn about ancient paleolithic spiritual practices. It is also unfortunately an incredibly hard subject since there is so little evidence and we have to make conclusions based on the lifestyle of modern day hunters and gatherers which is of course not 100% reliable. But piece by piece and through careful research we might perhaps reconstruct bits of ancient spiritual practices of our earliest European ancestors.
Here are images of: Sungir grave of the adult male, Sungir grave of the two children, Bones of the children showing abnormalities< Bone jewelry found at Sungir
The woolly mammoth is a species of mammoth that unfortunately went extinct around 10,000 years ago, this animal is also seen as the symbol of ancient European ice ages. Small populations of woolly mammoths continued to survive on the Wrangel Island in Russia until as recent as 4,000 years ago. There were still some mammoths left when the great pyramids in Egypt were being built.
Even though all mammoth species are now extinct, their legacy continues to live on in the minds of modern humans. Their bones and tusks are still being used until this very day. The indigenous cultures of Siberia and North America still contain myths explaining the presence of mammoths and other extinct megafauna. Whether these myths are based on ancient memories of ancestors who have witnessed these animals or based on found remains throughout the centuries is not fully known.
Indigenous Siberian people believe that the remains of woolly mammoths were once part of an animal able to crawl underground, also an explanation why earthquakes happen. If a mammoth was unfortunate enough to crawl upwards and reach the surface, it would die. This is one of the legends surrounding the woolly mammoth that has survived until this day. Indigenous north American people had similar stories of mammoths living underground. Another native-American legend, of the Inupiat people, suggests that mammoths were primordial giants.
Long before the western world started to seriously study ancient extinct species, parts of mammoth remains, such as their tusks, were imported into Europe. This precious ivory is still worth an incredible amount of money but back in the medieval ages, no one thought this ivory came from an extinct species. Europeans had several explanations for woolly mammoth remains: they probably belonged to an escaped herd of elephants during the Roman republic, they were the actual war elephants of Hannibal, they are simply just elephants who wandered a bit too far north or they are the victims of the great flood described in the biblical book genesis.
The first person who recognized that these remains were actually part of an extinct species of elephant was Hans Sloane back in 1728. Sloane published a paper in that year what can now be considered as the first scientific research on the woolly mammoth. 10 years later another researcher, Johann Philipp Breyne, also researched mammoth fossils and came to the conclusion that they are a species of elephant. Both men were however clueless on how these ‘elephants’ got in Siberia and proposed the theory that they were victims of Noah’s flood.
It took until 1796 when these mysterious 'elephant’ remains from Siberia were finally identified as a completely different species, not modern elephants as thought before but an entirely new species. French anatomist Georges Cuvier was the first to identify the woolly mammoth as a mammoth species and the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave the species its official scientific name 'Mammuthus Primigenius’.
In 1806, a Russian botanist Mikhail Adams journeyed towards northeastern Siberia to witness the most complete woolly mammoth skeleton found back in 1799. (the most complete of that time period, more complete and intact mammoth remains have been found since 1799) It was the first time that the entire skeleton, without the tusks, was found. The remains were brought back to St Petersburg and an attempt was made to reassemble the skeleton. There was however one problem, no one knew how the tusks would have looked like so the tusks were mounted on the wrong sides so that the curves went outwards instead of inwards. This mistake wasn’t corrected until 1899 and is still visible in the famous sketch of Adams mammoth.
Nowadays multiple subspecies of mammoth have been discovered, the woolly mammoth is just one of the mammoth species that once roamed the earth. It took until 2005 before researchers were finally able to complete a full mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth. 10 years later in 2015 it was confirmed that the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth is the asian elephant. If an attempt is ever made to bring back the woolly mammoth, our modern asian elephants can help us out. But the subject of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life again is a topic for another post.
Here are images of: Woolly mammoth by Mihin89, The Adams mammoth right now, with the tusks in the correct position, Sketch of Adams mammoth with the tusks on the wrong side,
The Aurignacian period is the earliest European culture in modern human history. The Aurignacian era lasted from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago and is associated with the early Homo Sapiens migration towards Europe. The modern humans of this time period were also the last ones to have encountered a Neanderthal.
Most of the classic ‘prehistoric items and art’ are from this time period. This includes: most of the classic cave art, such as the art in the Aurignac cave in France (that is where the name Aurignacian comes from), the countless venus statues that have been found all over Europe, carvings of mammoths and bears made from ivory and wood, flutes, more diverse tools such as needles and tools made from antler and bone.
Since the Aurignacian period is quite large, it has been divided into subperiods: the Proto-Aurignacian (43,000-37,000), the Aurignacian (37,000-33,000) and the Late-Aurignacian (33,000-26,000). Each of these subperiods has its own distinctive technologies influenced by both technological proces and climate change.
Art is perhaps the most defining trait of the Aurignacian, as the Aurignacian is the first time period during which modern humans developed a distinct taste for art. These artworks do not only include cave paintings but handcrafted objects as well. One particulary fascinating object is the Löwenmensch figure which has been found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany. The statue is about 40,000 years old and is the oldest representation of an anthropomorphic figure. We do not know the purpose behind the creation of this statue, perhaps it was just art or it served a deeper spiritual purpose, perhaps a representation of a shaman in trance.
Musical instruments also started appearing during this time period, the most common instrument found is the bone flute, this does not mean that the flute was the most popular instrument, bone flutes are just more easily preserved. We can only imagine what kind of tunes our earliest European ancestors would have played on these flutes.
The tools used by early humans also started to change during the Aurignacian period. Before this time period, almost all tools were made of stone, flint. It was during the Aurignacian period that tools made of bone and antler slowly started to appear. These bone and antler tools also gives us some insight into the animals that were hunted by these early modern humans, it seems that deer and reindeer were their primary prey, this would continue to be the case until the Magdalénien culture 18,000 years ago.
Here are images of: An Aurignacian shaman by Libor Balák, Aurignacian bone tools, Aurignacian Jewelry, Löwenmensch figure, Venus of Willendorf figure, Chauvet cave art,
The Cro Magnon humans were the earliest modern humans to settle in Europe. They are thus not a seperate extinct species of human but they are our earliest European ancestors. It is however not fully certain when modern humans, homo sapiens, entered Europe. Some historians agree on a date somewhere around 50,000BC while others suggest that the Cro Magnon entered Europe 210,000 years ago. This theory is based on skull fragments found in Greece.
Even though the Cro Magnon were modern humans, they did not look exactly the same as present day humans. The evolutionary path of our species is always moving, adapting to our current living situations. Our species and the Neanderthals have a common ancestor whose features were quite visible in the Cro Magnon human. The brow ridges were more prominent, the teeth were larger, they did not yet have the slight overbite of our upper jaw which enables us to make the ‘W’ sound. They were build much more robust compared to present day modern humans, it is clear that they were well adapted to the cold.
It was the Cro Magnon who encountered the then still present Neanderthals in Europe. We do not fully understand why the Neanderthals disappeared while we continued to evolve and develop our technologies. It is unlikely that a long lasting conflict between the two species is the cause of the Neanderthal’s demise. A possible theory is that modern humans are much more fertile. Their population was much bigger than that of the Neanderthals and they eventually started to have children with the Neanderthals as well.
If real love existed between both species is unknown but it is an interesting concept to think about. It is possible that through these factors, the Neanderthals were slowly pushed out of existence, since Neanderthal women weren’t as fertile as modern day female humans are, it is likely that Neanderthals started having relationships with modern day humans until eventually the last pure Neanderthal disappeared. They are not completely gone from this world, we all carry parts of Neanderthal genes inside of us.
The Cro Magnon are also the earliest humans with a distinct taste for art, the most famous example is perhaps the 'Venus’ statue. These statues have been found throughout Europe but we still do not know for which purpose they were created, a topic for a post in the future. They wore jewelry, most likely piercings and tattoos and other body art like painting the body with a dye.
These early humans also made music by using instruments such as bone flutes and whistles. Unfortunately wood and skin decays pretty rapidly so we do not know if they used other prehistoric instruments such as drums and bullroarers but if we compare the Cro Magnon with still existing tribes, it is very likely that they did play on such instruments.
Eventually the Cro Magnon developed distinct cultures throughout Europe and these in turn developed into the mesolithic cultures. Their bodies slowly evolved into the bodies that we have today, although evolution is an ever continuing process so who knows how the homo sapiens species will look like in another 100,000 years. When will we have changed so much that we can call it an another human species?
Here are images of: Reconstruction of a Cro Magnon male (Lascaux III) by Élisabeth Daynès. A skull of a Cro Magnon. Venus statue found in Kostenki, Russia.
This is a 14,000 years old sculpture of two bisons. The sculpture is made out of clay and discovered in the cave of Tuc Audoubert in 1912 in France.
The sculpture is about 45 centimeters tall and has been carefully constructed by paleolithic people 14,000 years ago, the amount of detail is quite amazing. It is unknown why this sculpture was created but it must have been for an important reason, perhaps religious, since the cave is quite hard to reach so ancient humans certainly wouldn’t have strolled inside this cave just for fun. Perhaps this location was used for certain ceremonies, a coming of age ritual, a place shamans visited for their trance work or a place where hunters gathered their strength and perhaps thanked the spirits for a succesful hunt.
In de gemeente Maastricht kan je de Belvédère-groeve vinden. Deze groeve werd gebruikt om löss te winnen maar in de jaren 80 werden er toch belangrijke ontdekkingen gemaakt die onze kijk op de Nederlandse geschiedenis heeft veranderd.
Op de plek van de groeve lag een steenfabriek die actief was tot 1982. Resten van fossielen en zelfs een menselijke onderkaak werden al gevonden in 1823 maar de dateringstechnieken waren helaas niet goed genoeg ontwikkeld om de ouderdom vast te stellen. Pas sinds de sluiting van de steenfabriek werd het mogelijk om goed en uitgebreid archeologisch onderzoek te doen bij deze groeve.
Deze archeologisch onderzoek heeft 10 jaar geduurd, van 1980-1990, en daarna werd nog 20 jaar onderzoek gedaan naar de vondsten. De uitkomst van dit onderzoek is zeer interessant want het blijkt dat niet alleen de moderne mens in Limburg heeft geleefd.
De vroegste sporen van bewoning dateren terug tot 250,000 jaar geleden. Er zijn stenen werktuigen gevonden die zijn vervaardigd door de Homo Heidelbergensis. De Heidelbergensis is de directe voorouder van de Neanderthaler en van ons, de Homo Sapiens. Een van de gevonden voorwerpen is een vuurstenen mes die gebruikssporen vertoond. Deze gebruikssporen zijn onderzocht en het blijkt dat deze mes is gebruikt voor het slachten van een wolharige neushoorn.
Niet alleen zijn er bewoningsresten van de Homo Heidelbergensis gevonden, ook zijn er voorwerpen gevonden die zijn gebruikt door de Neanderthalers. Deze dateren terug tot ongeveer 80,000 jaar geleden. Het blijkt dat de Belvédère-groeve is gebruikt als een tijdelijke kampement door de Homo Heidelbergensis en de Homo Neanderthalensis.
Er zijn ook nog sporen gevonden van de moderne mens in de Belvédère-groeve. Deze sporen dateren terug tot rond het jaar 5500v.Chr. Hier leefden dus mensen die behoorden tot de Bandkeramische cultuur. Het is simpelweg fascinerend dat deze groeve al een kwart miljoen jaar functioneerd als een plek voor bewoning. Drie mensensoorten hadden zich hier gevestigd en nu zijn wij er alleen nog.
In 1996 functioneerde de groeve als een vuilnisstort en werd het grotendeels volgegooid met afval. Een paar kleine stukken, die nog potentioneel archeologisch interessant kunnen zijn, zijn nu afgedekt met plastic voor eventueel toekomstige archeologische onderzoeken.
Hier zijn afbeeldingen van: Archeologisch onderzoek in de groeve (1981), Belvédère-groeve mes, Vuistbijl gevonden in de Belvédère-groeve, Tekening van een Heidelbergensis vrouw,
Earliest Traces Of Spirituality In Germanic Territory
We know that the Germanic people had an elaborate pantheon of Gods and rituals but most of the Germanic spirituality came from much older sources. The Gods as we know them, have their origins with the Proto-Indo European people but certain spiritual habits, like ancestor worship and the belief in nature spirits, was already practiced by the neolithic people inhabiting later Germanic territories.
One of the oldest finds that can possibly be linked with a spiritual practice, are the red deer antler skulls that have been uncovered in Bedburg, Germany. Two modified antler skulls have been found at an early mesolithic site which dates back to around 9700BC. These skulls have been modified as such as they could be used as a headdress.
Now we can’t of course be exactly sure if these antlers were used for ritualistic purposes but some historians agree that they were possibly used by ancient shamans. If this is indeed the case, that makes these deer skulls the oldest trace that we have of a shamanic spiritual practice. They could also have been worn as normal attire by a hunter or tribe chief but wearing big antlers on your head seems counterproductive for the hunt.
What further encourages the belief that they were used for a ritualistic purpose, are some several other finds from the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic era. A few examples are the lion man sculpture (Germany 35,000BC), dancing men engraved on a rock (The Netherlands 9,000BC), Sorcerer cave painting (France 13,000BC), antler headdress (England, 9,000BC)
All these finds represent some form of metamorphic man/animal being. The bond between nature and humans, man and animal is very important in animistic societies. If we picture ourselves how a shaman would look like, most of you would probably imagine a man dressed in animal skins with most likely either a bear pelt on his head or antlers, it reminds us of the modern day band Heilung.
For whatever reason these objects were used by our paleolithic and mesolithic ancestors, they are quite unique in nature and they set our imagination free on how these ancestors of ours lived in harmony with nature.
Here are photos of: Bedburg antler headdress, Germany Yorkshire antler headdress, England Löwenmensch statue, Germany Danseres van Geldrop and Danser van Wanssum, The Netherlands Sorcerer cave painting, France
“Another example of human activity within the cave can be found in the Skull Chamber. In this cave it is possible to see prints and bones on the floor, and on the walls, claw marks, engravings, paintings, hand prints and torch wipes. But in the very centre a cave bear skull was moved and placed on the rock. This would have been done either 32,000 to 30,000 or 27,000 to 26,000 years ago. “
Text from bradshawfoundation.com
The skull was found in the Chauvet cave in France.
Hamburg Culture (Germanicseidr is a blog also created by me)
Today I want to go a lot further back in time than usual, back to the paleolithic era. I have written a post about the Ahrensburg culture several weeks ago, these were reindeer hunters who lived in North Western Europe. Now I want to give you some information about the Hamburg Culture, this culture is older than the Ahrensburg people, the Hamburg culture dates back to 15,500BC-13,100BC.
The Hamburg culture existed during the last part of the Weichsel Glaciation. The Weichsel Glaciation was a moment between 117,000BC and 11,650BC in which the ice sheets were at their maximum, reaching from the North Pole until modern day Hamburg, Germany.
Scandinavia was still one huge ice sheet and thus uninhabitable land but the people belonging to the Hamburg culture lived close to the ice sheets in modern day The Netherlands, Northern Germany and Poland. The name of the culture itself is named after the German city of Hamburg where the first discoveries were made in the 1920’s by Alfred Rust. He discovered several camps which belonged to these Hamburgian hunters.
To put it simply, it was cold in Northern Europe, really freezing cold during this time period. Yet still early humans migrated North, to the later birthplace of the Germanic culture, to hunt for reindeer. These hunters are in fact the first modern humans who settled in Northern Europe. They are our earliest Northern European ancestors.
Living in Northern Europe during the Weichsel Glaciation was hard. With an eternal winter, snow and a gigantic ice sheet nearby, it would have been hard for these people to just survive. Reindeer were the main source of food for the Hamburgian people, besides reindeer they also hunted for smaller game and fish.
Characteristic for this culture are the specific kinds of tools found in several areas, the shouldered point and the zinken. These tools were used when working with antler. Since reindeer was their primary food source, it is no wonder they developed specific tools to process killed reindeer.
What is also interesting is that traces of this culture have been found along the Norwegian coast in 2005. The Hamburgian people must have travelled North during the slightly warmer periods in summer. Ships were not necessary for this, the sea level was 50 meters lower than today.
When looking at the archeological remains of the camps, we can assume that these people lived in tipis, which you might recognize from the native Americans. Circles of stones found at Hamburgian camps, could have served as weights to keep the tent stable. From the debris found at these camps we can assume with certainty that they almost lived solely on reindeer meat.
These people led a nomadic life, they brought their tents with them while moving around, following the reindeer wherever they went. They are the oldest modern humans of Northern Europe so they definitely deserve a mention in here and respect for surviving one of the coldest periods of our current ice age. For those who wonder, yes we still live in an ice age and ours is called the Quaternary Glaciation which started 2,58 million years ago.
Here are photos of: Shouldered points found in Frisia and Denmark A depiction of a Hamburgian family A map of the ice sheets
![coolartefact: Mammoth ivory portrait of woman with sagging face, Upper Paleolithic [528 x 980]Source](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7e17616b74c7bfdd4e6eed7223fae9b4/tumblr_o63588SGGz1ukgx4io1_1280.jpg "coolartefact: Mammoth ivory portrait of woman with sagging face, Upper Paleolithic [528 x 980]Source")
