Preface

The new Famous Planet Earth Caves e-book series challenges to present important caves all over the world scientifically, but somehow also popular in a mixture, that non-experts can understand their main importance. The Hermann‘s Cave in northern Germany is one of the largest show caves in Germany and Europe and has an important Ice Age related history starting only about 350.000 years ago with most importance for the Late Pleistocene (MIS 5d-2) and its impact for the landscape and LGM glacier reconstructions of the Harz Mountain Range. This is a beautiful granite (Brocken Peak) and limestone (cave areas) rock and valley cutted landscape, that became famous already in historic times. It was visited by many famous natural scientist pioneers starting already at the end of the 17th century. The book is interdisciplinary but with a strong focus on its main international importance – the Late Pleistocene fauna and archaeololgy. The cave system was used by different cave bear types as cave bear den within a former boreal forest environment of the medium high up to 1.014 a.s.l. elevated most northern German mountain range. It presents a review of scientific work of the Brunswick Palaeontologist/Archaeologicst pioneer Prof. Dr. W. Blasius after more than 200 years. It is a catalogue compendium and adds knowledge to small and large cave bear species/subspecies ecology in Europe including interactions with steppe lions and Cromagnon humans, and their life and battle to survive in taiga forest mountain areas of central Europe. In Europe it is the second very important cave, that has delivered some steppe lion skeletons deeper in the cave between cave bear skeletons – a rare proof for their cave bear predation. From the archaeological point of view, the cave has another unique and convincing European cave bear hunting prove by Late Palaeolithics deeper in the cave using propulsion weapons. The project also demonstrates the large “cave society problem” and the conflicts between scientists, private caver clubs and cave owners. Spleunkers have other interests as bat protectors, palaeontologists, archaeologists or cave owners, whereas the bones which are the most important in the cave – are treated worst: being trampled, skeletons are damaged in context by taking trophies or during electric cable installations, etc. The best/worst example for the long-tradition of quite bad cave treatment is the original cave bear skeleton composite made historically by Kloos, which was replaced “dumped” in the Bear Hall between other bones by a “plastic cave bear skeleton”. The “palaeontological Picasso” was of less worth, at a cost of 5.000 Euro most expensive replica, and it was worth less as the 2015 expensively restaurated “concrete bear” in the centre of Rübeland village – which demonstrates the still remaining difficulties in understanding the real value of the cave and its “stories”. This book should open the eyes for the really important facts of the cave and its “bone stories”, so that they might become “alive” in an Ice Age cave Safari story in a future Museum being installed sensitively within the cave. Finally, the book is dedicated to a good friend, the archaeological cave researcher and specialist for Iron Age cave use in the Sauerland Karst cave region of northern Germany, Dr. Wilhelm Bleicher, who sadly passed away beginning of 2016.