Station: [32] Early Humans in the Franconian Alps: Neanderthals and Homo sapiens

In southern Germany, evidence of early humans can be traced back across several hundreds of thousands of years. The oldest finds in the Franconian Alps are items left behind by a male Neanderthal in a collapsed cave near a hamlet called Hunas. Excavations during recent decades turned up not only the typical stone tools, but also bone fragments from the prey he was hunting and a molar that belonged to a juvenile individual.

Other, equally ancient tools were found in the sediments of two caves: the Petershöhle near Velden and the Hohler Fels near Happurg. The first – unscientific – excavations at the latter cave took place more than 150 years ago. As well as stone tools attributed to Neanderthals, there were also some attributed to Homo sapiens. Beyond that, tools and pieces of jewellery made of bone and ivory were discovered, as well as remains of the animals hunted by these early humans.

That such ancient finds are mainly discovered in cave sediments, and under a sheltering canopy of rock, doesn’t mean that settlement sites were confined to such places. They’re simply the locations where finds have been best preserved. In the open countryside, where, as we now know, early humans lived in tent-like dwellings, any finds were often covered by thick subsequent deposits or were eroded.

Thanks to findings from areas where favourable circumstances have allowed evidence to be preserved, we are able to reconstruct the fauna and flora, the way of life, and sometimes even the burial customs of our most ancient ancestors.