Kleine Feldhofer Grotte

The Kleine Feldhofer Grotte was a karst Kalksteinhöhle (limestone cave) in the Neanderthal where bones of at least three Neanderthal individuals were excavated in 1856.

Mettmann

The Kleine Feldhofer Grotte was a karst Kalksteinhöhle (limestone cave) in the Neanderthal where bones of at least three Neanderthal individuals were excavated in 1856.

Characteristics

• Type: Cave
• Municipality: Mettmann
• Record updated: November 13, 2026

Caves are protected biotopes (§30 BNatSchG). Caves used by bats as winter quarters must not be entered from 1 October to 31 March (§39(6) BNatSchG), except show caves and their developed parts.

Location

The Kleine Feldhofer Grotte was located in the Neanderthal in western Germany. The cave was in a limestone gorge; the entrance lay 1 m above the valley floor in the southern wall, which was 50 m high. The cave took its name from the nearby large farmstead “Feldhof”.

Map

Entrances

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1. Kleine Feldhofer Grotte

   51.227500, 6.945556
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Unknown author Unknown author · Public Domain Mark 1.0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ · Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kleine_Feldhofer_Grotte.jpg

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Description

Morphology

The Kleine Feldhofer Grotte was a karst Kalksteinhöhle (limestone cave) with interior dimensions of 3 m width, 5 m length and 3 m height.

Other details

The cave was destroyed in the 19th century by industrial limestone quarrying, which widened the gorge. The site of the cave soon fell into oblivion and was unknown around 1900. In 1997, during a successful search for the site of the cave and its deposits, 24 human bone fragments were found, one of which, identified as “NN 13”, fitted exactly onto the left lateral femur. During the excavation in 2000, thousands of artifacts were recovered.

History

In August 1856, bones of Neanderthal specimens were excavated in the cave (→ Neandertal 1). Miners of the Mettmann quarry owner Wilhelm Beckershoff excavated a skullcap and a series of skeletal bones that were to be designated as Neanderthal.

Bio

The bones belong to at least three different individuals. The mitochondrial DNA of two bone samples was completely sequenced and completed in 2009.

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Source: Wikidata – cave items (Germany) (www.wikidata.org), modified. CC0 1.0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ Wikidata (CC0 1.0) · data as of 2026 · Source: German Wikipedia – article leads (cave descriptions) (de.wikipedia.org), modified. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Wikipedia contributors (de.wikipedia.org), CC BY-SA 4.0 · Text by Wikipedia contributors (Kleine Feldhofer Grotte) · adapted by Espeleoworld (normalized, translated); the adaptation is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · description · obtained 2026-11-13 · https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleine_Feldhofer_Grotte · data as of 2026