Salzofenhöhle | |
  location in Austria | |
| Location | municipality ofGrundlsee |
|---|---|
| Region | Salzkammergut,Styria,Austria |
| Coordinates | 47°40′50″N13°56′10″E / 47.68056°N 13.93611°E /47.68056; 13.93611 |
| History | |
| Periods | Palaeolithic |
Salzofen cave is an archaeological site inStyria,Austria. It is located in the municipality ofGrundlsee at an altitude of approximately 2,000 m (6,600 ft), about sixty meters below the summit. It is known for itsNeolithic andMiddle Paleolithic finds of fireplaces,stone tools, and bone tools, the latter dating from 65000 to 31000BCE.[1][2]
In 1924 two hunters, who had taken shelter in the cave from a storm found severalfossilized bones in the entrance area. They handed them over to Otto Körber, a local school principal fromBad Aussee. Körber visited the site on the next day and immediately began to dig, progressing almost 100 m (330 ft) until summer, unearthing large amounts of bone fossils. He soon realized, that most of thefaunal remains are to be attributed to aninterglacial period. The vast majority of the bones belonged to cave bears and Körber was able to reconstruct an entire cave skeleton from his findings. In deeper and older layers, he discovered bone fossils of wolf, marten,Alpine ibex and a completewolverine skeleton. In 1934 Körber found the first and for him only object made by prehistoric humans, a scraper made of horn although numerous charcoal fragments and burnt bones lead him to conclude, that he had found one of the most elevated occupation sites of Paleo-humans in Europe.[3] During 1939, 1948 to 1953 and 1956 to 1964 excavations took place under the leadership of Kurt Ehrenberg. He foundassemblages of tools and objects and suspiciously arrangements of bear skulls, that could only be attributed to human activity.[4]
