Obłazowa Cave
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Obłazowa Cave is a
cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...
situated in the nature reserve of Przełom Białki at
Nowa Biała Nowa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Bolesławiec, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Gmina Bolesławiec, within Bolesławiec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. References

Villages in Bolesławiec ...
near
Krempachy Krempachy is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Nowy Targ, within Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately east of Nowy Targ and south of the regional capital Kraków. It is one of t ...
,
Gmina Nowy Targ __NOTOC__ Gmina Nowy Targ is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. Its seat is the town of Nowy Targ, although the town itself is not part of the territory of the gmina. The gm ...
in
Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). Its capital and largest city is Kraków. The province's name recalls the traditional name of a h ...
, southern
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
. The cave has a 9 m long chamber to which a short corridor leads. It is one of the most important
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
sites in Poland.


Archaeological research

Excavations at the Obłazowa Cave started in 1985 by a team of archaeologists led by professor Paweł Valde-Nowak of the Institute of Archaeology at the
Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...
in
Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
. Research has shown that Obłazowa Cave was inhabited by humans at several periods. Scientists distinguished ten layers of occupation, six associated with the presence of
Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
s and the remaining four showing activities of modern humans. In the upper layers an iron arrowhead, a crossbow and pieces of ceramics from the late Middle Ages were found.


Layer VIII

The most important artifacts were discovered in layer VIII, associated with modern ''Homo sapiens'' and dated to about 30,000 BP. From this layer scientists excavated the oldest
boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...
in the world, made from a mammoth tusk and the oldest bones of ''Homo sapiens'' in Poland (two finger bones). The layer also contained two antler wedges, pendants made of perforated
canine teeth In mammalian oral anatomy, the canine teeth, also called cuspids, dogteeth, eye teeth, vampire teeth, or fangs, are the relatively long, pointed teeth. In the context of the upper jaw, they are also known as '' fangs''. They can appear more fl ...
of
fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...
or
arctic fox The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small species of fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Tundra#Arctic tundra, Arctic tundra biome. I ...
, bone beads, a pendant of unknown purpose, possibly a whistle, made of a perforated
cone snail Cone snails, or cones, are highly venomous sea snails that constitute the family Conidae. ''Conidae'' is a taxonomic family (previously subfamily) of predatory marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Conoidea. The 2014 classification of ...
shell on which traces of
ochre Ochre ( ; , ), iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colou ...
were found. The tool inventory of layer VIII contained a wide range of raw material: Jurassic Kraków
flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...
, chocolate flint, both imported from northern regions, local
radiolarite Radiolarite is a Siliceous ooze, siliceous, comparatively hard, fine-grained, chert-like, and homogeneous sedimentary rock that is composed predominantly of the microscopic remains of radiolarians. This term is also used for Friability, indurat ...
, and
rock crystal Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...
probably from northern
Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
. Some of the stone tools were made of raw material imported from a great distance. The most impressive findings like the boomerang and human bones were located in a circle made of
granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
and
quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tecton ...
pebbles. Because of the arrangement of the artifacts and their great value this is interpreted as a place of some cult or ritual. The presence of human bones may suggest a partial or symbolic burial or some kind of sacrifice. The site contains a number of other important archaeological findings as well as a rich and diversified fauna of
mollusks Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The num ...
,
amphibians Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...
,
reptiles Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...
,
birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
and small and large
mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...
of the Late
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
Age. Before the discoveries in the Obłazowa Cave all
Carpathian The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at ...
Paleolithic sites were dated to the Upper Paleolithic, Late Paleolithic. No traces of earlier settlements were apparent. This situation has changed with the discovery of the Middle Paleolithic sequence in the Obłazowa Cave.


Sightseeing

The cave is open to visitors, but in the near future it will be secured with bars to protect the archaeological layers. In 2017 the Nowy Targ commune office started working on a project whose goal is to create an Obłazowa Cave Archaeological Park to present the results of years of research to the public.


Bibliography

* Valde-Nowak, Paweł, Nadachowski Adam, Madeyska Teresa (2003):''Obłazowa Cave: Human Activity, Stratigraphy and Palaeoenvironment''. Institute of archeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences. . * Valde- Nowak, Paweł (2009): Obłazowa and Hłomcza: Two Paleolithic sites in the North Carparthians province of Southern Poland. In Adams, Brian; S. Blades, Brooke (Eds.), ''Lithic Materials and Palolithic Societies'' (pp. 196– 207). Wiley-Blackwell. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Obłazowa Cave Caves of Poland Paleolithic Europe