The Gudenushöhle: one of the oldest dwellings in Central Europe

The cave in Krems Valley ("Kremstal" in German) was frequented by a group of Neanderthals 70,000 years ago and is also one of the most important Stone Age sites in Central Europe.

The Gudenus Cave is located in Krems Valley ("Kremstal" in German) at the confluence of the Great and Little Krems rivers. It is a so-called passage cave with three entrances, which was formed by erosion along a rocky cleft. Today it lies just over seven meters above the normal water level at the foot of a rock face directly below Hartenstein Castle. The cave has a total length of around 30 m, the passage is now around 4 m wide and 3.7 m high. Originally, the rock floor was covered with a thick layer of sediment, but this was gradually removed during the archaeological excavations.

Resting place of the Neanderthals
The earliest excavations in the Gudenus Cave took place around 1883, but it was not until 1908 that Henri Breuil and Hugo Obermeier, one of the discoverers of the Venus of Willendorf, carried out the first detailed excavations. The last sediments were finally examined and removed in 1976.

The oldest cultural layer is around 70,000 years old and dates back to Neanderthals, who apparently repeatedly used the cave as a resting place. In addition to bone remains and charcoal, typical hand axes and chisels were found.

Finds from the Palaeolithic period
The Gudenus Cave is one of the oldest known sites of human artifacts in Lower Austria. Similarly old finds have only been discovered at the Gudenus rock shelter, about 30 m south of the cave, the Teufelsrast rock shelter in the Krems Valley ("Kremstal" in German) and in the lowest layer of Willendorf.

It is little known that not only Neanderthals but also modern humans set up camp in the Gudenus Cave many millennia later during the Palaeolithic period. Among other things, a tubular container made from an eagle bone with an engraved drawing of a reindeer comes from this layer, which is around 19,000 to 12,000 years old. In addition to numerous stone tools such as scrapers, burins and drills, bony sewing needles and a bone whistle were also found, from which shrill whistling sounds can still be elicited today.

Tip: The finds from the Gudenus Cave can be found in the MAMUZ Asparn an der Zaya and the Natural History Museum Vienna.