Throughout history, primitive peoples have made use of caves for shelter, burial, or as religious sites. Since items placed in caves are protected from the climate and scavanging animals, which means caves are an archaeological treasure house for learning about indigenous people.
Cave paintings are of particular interest. One example is the Great Cave of Niah, in Malaysia which contains evidence of human habitation dating back 40,000 years. The main cave is one of the largest limestone caves in the world. The cave system is an important prehistorical site with human remains dating to 40,000 years ago. Painted Cave has rock paintings dated at 1200 years. The caves are also well known for the birds' nest collection.
Caves are also important for geological research because they can reveal details of past climactic conditions in speleothems and sediment layers.
The word 'cave' is sometimes a metaphor for the mind, hidden within is sacred knowledge that yearns to be discovered.
Caves around the world contain information in various forms about the ancient history of planet Earth as if markers in time. Hidden within caves we find:
Access to Subterranean Civilizations
Quamran Caves - Dead Sea Scrolls
Art - Hieroglyphs - Pictographs
Caves at Lascaux, France
Lascaux Wikipedia
Lascaux is a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. The original caves, located near the village of Montignac. They contain some of the earliest known art, dating back to somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 BCE, or as far back as 25,000 BCE.
Earliest Oil Paintings Discovered Live Science - April 22, 2008
Oil paintings have been found in caves behind the two ancient colossal
Buddha statues destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, suggesting that Asians -
not Europeans - were the first to invent oil painting
Earliest Oil Paintings Found in Famed Afghan Caves National Geographic - February 7, 2008
Petroglyphs - Pictographs - Cave Paintings - Geoglyphs Crystalinks
Florida: Divers Break Record for Longest Cave Passage National Geographic - December 17, 2007
Completing the longest dive from one cave opening to another, divers on a
treacherous 20-hour journey proved that vast underwater networks in Florida are linked.
Found! World's oldest caves News in Science - July 26, 2006
The Jenolan caves west of Sydney date back some 340 million years, making
them the oldest known open caves in the world, Australian geologists say. The oldest previous dating for an open cave was around 90 million years. In geological terms, 340 million years is a very long time. To put it into context, the Blue Mountains began to form 100 million years ago; dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, and Tasmania was joined to the mainland as recently as 10,000 years ago. The discovery opens the possibility that there could be evidence of other ancient geological events in the caves that scientists haven't looked for yet. For example, the researchers think the clay in the cave was formed when volcanic ash entered.
Jenolan Caves
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Ancient cave in western France contains rare finds, experts announce PhysOrg - June 3, 2006
A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated
with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France
whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves.
Explorers Discover Huge Cave and New Poison Frogs Live Science - February 21, 2006
Actually, "Cueva del Fantasma" - Spanish for "Cave of the Ghost" - is so vast that
two helicopters can comfortably fly into it and land next to a towering waterfall.
Catacomb Find Boosts Early Christian-Jewish Ties National Geographic - July 20, 2005
There are also catacomb-like burial chambers in Anatolia, Turkey; in Susa, North Africa; in Naples, Italy; in Syracuse, Italy; Trier, Germany; Kiev, Ukraine. Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily were used as late as 1920s.
In Ukraine and Russia, catacomb (used in the local languages' plural katakomby) also refers to the network of abandoned caves and tunnels earlier used to mine stone, especially limestone. Such catacombs are situated in Crimea and the Black Sea coast of these two countries. The most famous are catacombs beneath Odessa and Ajimushkay, Crimea, Ukraine. They served as bases for Soviet World War II guerillas. Ajimushkay catacombs hosted about 10.000 fighters and refugees. Many of them died and were buried there, and memorials and museums were later established (it is now a territory of Kerch city). Read More
Cavers smash world depth record BBC - April 2005
Cavers have ventured deeper into the Earth than anyone
has been before at Krubera, the world's deepest known cave.
Arizona Tries Tourism to Save "Living Cave" National Geographic - April 2005
Mexico: Cheve Cave: Expedition Seeks World's Deepest Cave Record National Geographic - March 2004
Israeli cave linked to John the Baptist MSNBC - August 16, 2004
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