| Goat's Hair Twin Caves | |
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 One of the caves | |
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| Coordinates | 36°7′21.7″N5°20′31.2″W / 36.122694°N 5.342000°W Coordinates: 36°7′21.7″N5°20′31.2″W / 36.122694°N 5.342000°W |
| Access | Mediterranean Steps |
The Goat's Hair Twin Caves are in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.
The two caves are located at 190 metres above sea level, situated side by side about 30 metres above the path leading to Martin’s Cave. Both caves have large, triangular-shaped entrances, and were formed along vertical fractures. Marine erosion is evident in both.
The Goat's Hair Twin Caves are a pair of sea "twin caves" situated on the eastern side of Gibraltar. This name was given to them as it was a goatherd refuge in the 19th century and this meant a large amount of goat's hair found attached to the cave walls. This site's original name is Sewell's Fig Tree Caves after Captain Sewell, who was also the discoverer of what is now often referred to as Cave S or Sewell's Cave. In 1867 these caves were explored and partly excavated by Captain Brome, a well-known explorer of Gibraltar's caves at the time. [1]
One of these caves was then heavily excavated and emptied of all deposits by the Gibraltar cave research group, led by George Palao in November 1969 and reaching the caves bedrock in June 1970. During these excavations, there was the discovery of a "prehistoric ceremonial burial" on the northern wall of one of the two caves revealing a female human skeleton with a crushed skull [2] surrounded by various pottery vessels, bone pendants, flint blades, armlets and anklets. There are descriptions of this excavation and the findings but there is no record of these finds having ever been deposited in the Gibraltar Museum and therefore there is no trace of this piece of Gibraltar's heritage. [1]
Underground hard rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, usually those containing metals such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin and lead, but also involves using the same techniques for excavating ores of gems such as diamonds or rubies. Soft rock mining refers to excavation of softer minerals such as salt, coal, or oil sands.
The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places in and around Rome, of which there are at least forty, some rediscovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either in separate catacombs or mixed together, Jews and also adherents of a variety of pagan Roman religions were buried in catacombs, beginning in the 2nd century AD, occasioned by the ancient Roman ban on burials within a city, and also as a response to overcrowding and shortage of land. The most extensive and perhaps the best known is the Christian Catacomb of Callixtus located near the Park of the Caffarella, but there are other sites, both Christian and not, scattered around the city, some of which are now engulfed in the modern urban sprawl.
The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is a Neolithic subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase in Maltese prehistory, located in Paola, Malta. It is often simply referred to as the Hypogeum, literally meaning "underground" in Greek. The Hypogeum is thought to have been a sanctuary and necropolis, with the remains of more than 7,000 people documented by archeologists, and is among the best preserved examples of the Maltese temple building culture that also produced the Megalithic Temples and Xagħra Stone Circle.
The Jeita Grotto is a system of two separate, but interconnected, karstic limestone caves spanning an overall length of nearly 9 kilometres (5.6 mi). The caves are situated in the Nahr al-Kalb valley within the locality of Jeita, 18 kilometres (11 mi) north of the Lebanese capital Beirut. Though inhabited in prehistoric times, the lower cave was not rediscovered until 1836 by Reverend William Thomson; it can only be visited by boat since it channels an underground river that provides fresh drinking water to more than a million Lebanese.
St. Michael's Cave or Old St. Michael's Cave is the name given to a network of limestone caves located within the Upper Rock Nature Reserve in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, at a height of over 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level. According to Alonso Hernández del Portillo, the first historian of Gibraltar, its name is derived from a similar grotto in Monte Gargano near the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo in Apulia, Italy, where the archangel Michael is said to have appeared.
Darra-e Kūr or Bābā Darwīsh, is an archaeological site in Badakhshan province in Afghanistan. It is situated just northeast of Kalafgān near the village of Chinār-i Gunjus Khān 63 km (39.1 mi) east of Taloqan, on the road to Faizabad. The cave is situated atop the side of the valley near the hamlet of Bābā Darwīsh.
Vanguard Cave is a natural sea cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar which is part of the Gorham's Cave complex. This complex of four caves has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2016. The cave complex is one of the last known habitations of the Neanderthals, with a period of inhabitation from 55,000 to 28,000 years ago. It is located on the southeast face of the Rock of Gibraltar.
Martin's Cave is a cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It opens on the eastern cliffs of the Rock of Gibraltar, below its summit at O'Hara's Battery. It is an ancient sea cave, though it is now located over 700 feet (210 m) above the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is only accessible because Martin's Path was constructed.
Bray's Cave is a limestone cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Human remains and notable Neolithic and Bronze Age finds have been unearthed in the cave. Three almost complete skulls were recovered but the important find was that people had returned to the site to re-use it for funerals, other cranial fragments from other individuals were recovered, and it appeared that previous remains had been move aside for a more recent death.
Cave S is a limestone cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar, near Holy Boy's Cave. Human remains were found in the cave in 1910 that did not appear to be of a modern man.
The Genista Caves are a series of caves located under Windmill Hill in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Fossils of various mammals and human remains were discovered here in the mid-1860s. The name of the caves is a play on words based on Captain Frederick Brome's name, who discovered them.
Judge's Cave is a cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Human remains dated to the late prehistoric period have been unearthed in the cave.
Pete's Paradise Cave is a cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Explored in the 1960s and 1970s by a team led by George Palao, four skeletons have been unearthed in the cave, two of which were female skeletons with crushed skulls.
Devil's Tower Cave is a cave in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Archaeologist Dorothy Garrod found a Neanderthal skull in the cave which, together with other evidence found in this cave, shows it was used as a rock shelter by the Neanderthals of Gibraltar.
The tunnels of Gibraltar were constructed over the course of nearly 200 years, principally by the British Army. Within a land area of only 2.6 square miles (6.7 km2), Gibraltar has around 34 miles (55 km) of tunnels, nearly twice the length of its entire road network. The first tunnels, excavated in the late 18th century, served as communication passages between artillery positions and housed guns within embrasures cut into the North Face of the Rock. More tunnels were constructed in the 19th century to allow easier access to remote areas of Gibraltar and accommodate stores and reservoirs to deliver the water supply of Gibraltar.
Mediterranean Steps is a path and nature trail in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. One of the footpaths of Gibraltar, the path is located entirely within the Upper Rock Nature Reserve and was built by the British military but is now used by civilians as a pedestrian route linking Martin's Path to Lord Airey's Battery near the summit of Rock of Gibraltar. The path offers views over the Strait of Gibraltar, Windmill Hill, Europa Point, the Great Sand Dune, Gibraltar's east side beaches, the Mediterranean Sea and the Spanish Costa del Sol.
Windmill Hill or Windmill Hill Flats is one of a pair of plateaux, known collectively as the Southern Plateaux, at the southern end of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located just to the south of the Rock of Gibraltar, which descends steeply to the plateau. Windmill Hill slopes down gently to the south with a height varying from 120 metres (390 ft) at the north end to 90 metres (300 ft) at the south end. It covers an area of about 19 hectares, though about 6 hectares at the north end is built over. The plateau is ringed to the south and east with a line of cliffs which descend to the second of the Southern Plateaux, Europa Flats, which is itself ringed by sea cliffs. Both plateaux are the product of marine erosion during the Quaternary period and subsequent tectonic uplift. Windmill Hill was originally on the shoreline and its cliffs were cut by the action of waves, before the ground was uplifted and the shoreline moved further out to the edge of what is now Europa Flats.
Haua Fteah is a large karstic cave located in the Cyrenaica in northeastern Libya. This site has been of significance to research on African archaeological history and anatomically modern human prehistory because it was occupied during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Evidence of modern human presence in the cave date back to 200,000 BP.
Melkhoutboom Cave is an archaeological site dating to the Later Stone Age, located in the Zuurberg Mountains, Cape Folded Mountain Belt, Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
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