Wolf Cave
Encyclopedia
Kristinestad
Kristinestad is a town and a municipality in Finland. It is located in the western part of Finland on the shore of the Bothnian Sea. The population of Kristinestad is and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water . The population density is . The population is bilingual...
(Kristiinankaupunki), near the Karijoki
Karijoki
Karijoki is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The population of Karijoki is and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water...
municipality in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. The upper part of the crack has been packed with soil, forming a cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
. In 1996, some objects were found in the cave that brought about speculations that it could have been inhabited in the Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
, 120,000 to 130,000 years ago. These objects, if authentic, would be the only known Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
artifacts in the Nordic countries.
Excavation history
In 1996, plans were made to empty the cave of soil and turn it into a tourist attractionTourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest where tourists visit, typically for its inherent or exhibited cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, or amusement opportunities....
, but during the process, stone objects that might have been created by humans were found and the work to empty the cave was halted. In 1997, an excavation of the cave was begun as a collaboration between the National Board of Antiquities, the Geological Survey of Finland, the Department of Geology of the University of Helsinki, and the Finnish Museum of Natural History. This excavation lasted until 2000 and was focused on determining the age of the materials, finding out if similar items could be found elsewhere in Europe, and reconstructing the prehistoric surroundings. The results were presented in a 2002 report.
Work was interrupted in 2001 because of the risk that the cave was about to collapse, in part as a result of the excavation itself, but the cave was stabilized in 2002, and a protecting wire netting of steel was set up to prevent chips of stone from falling. In 2003, a follow-up was carried out, and in 2004 the National Board of Antiquities received funds to start a three year research project. Work began again later that year, and in the following years, excavations took place in the early summer each year.
Findings
After eight summers of digging, about 200 artifacts, some 600 pieces of strike waste, scrapers and bolt stone, and heated stones from an open fire have been found. The objects are made of various materials, including siltstoneSiltstone
Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...
, quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
, quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
, volcanic rock
Volcanic rock
Volcanic rock is a rock formed from magma erupted from a volcano. In other words, it is an igneous rock of volcanic origin...
, jasper
Jasper
Jasper, a form of chalcedony, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. This mineral breaks with a smooth surface, and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and at one time for...
and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
; as siltstone and quartzite don't occur naturally in the area, at least some of these must have come from elsewhere.
The ground in Wolf Cave consists of at least eight layers, of which the fourth and the fifth are the geologically and archeologically most interesting. The stone material that has been found appears to have been worked with several different techniques—tools of stone with good processing structure, such as fine-grained quartzite and red siltstone, have been worked in a way that is typical of the Middle Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...
, probably from the Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
era, while quartz, other quartzite, and sandstone have been worked with the earlier Clactonian
Clactonian
The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture that dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindel-Riss or the Holstein stages . Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans...
technique.
Large quantities of bones from mammals and their prey have also been found, mostly in the upper layers of the cave, though it is not certain that any of the bone material dates from before the last ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
.
Criticism
There is disagreement as to whether Neanderthals actually settled in the cave. In 2006, Joakim Donner, Professor Emeritus in Geology and Paleontology, published in the journal Tieteessä tapahtuu criticisms of the idea that the materials found in the cave were created by humans. Donner claims not only that stones from Wolf Cave are not similar to Neanderthal objects found in France, but also that the cave was located under water during the time period in question, and that there is no proof that fire was made there.Hans-Peter Schulz of the National Board of Antiquities has defended the findings, saying that it is very possible that the cave was situated above water level at the time, and that soot from the fireplace that has been found is over 40,000 years old and cannot have come from outside the cave. The justification that the pieces of stone found in the cave are actually products of human beings is, according to Schulz, that the objects have been exposed to a rapid and aimed blow, leaving a surface that doesn't look similar to one that has been exposed to exogenous processes, but does resemble those of man-made objects from the Paleolithic found in central Europe.
In 2007, several critical papers from Finnish geologists and archaeologists were published in the archaeological journal Fennoscandia archaeologica (vol. XXIV). The authors in question were not convinced that the finds and features found in the cave are man-made.