Hohle Fels is a Paleolithic cave site located in the Swabian Jura region of southwestern Germany. It is well known for containing a cultural sequence spanning the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition and for its evidence of Aurignacian portable art and musical instruments.
Hohle Fels, together with other well-known sites such as Geißenklösterle, Sirgenstein, and Brillenhöhle, is located in the Ach Valley, a tributary of the Danube River. The steeply sided valley was carved out by the Danube before avulsing into its modern drainage prior to the Riss glaciation. Hohle Fels and the other cave sites in the valley are remnant phreatic tubes formed within the Jurassic limestone of the region.
Bear teeth and reindeer bones were first collected in the cave in the 1830s, and the site was extensively excavated for its guano deposits in the 1840s. O. Fraas and T. Hartmann conducted the first scientific excavations at Hohle Fels in 1870–1871. R. R. Schmidt excavated there in 1906, and G. Riek...
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Miller, C.E. (2017). Hohle Fels. In: Gilbert, A.S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0_85
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