| Grotte di Pastena (Pastena Caves) | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Location of the caves in Italy | |
| Location | Pastena (FR, Lazio, Italy) |
| Coordinates | 41°29′48.77″N13°29′21.91″E / 41.4968806°N 13.4894194°E |
| Length | 900 m [1] |
| Elevation | 310 m |
| Discovery | 1926 [1] |
| Geology | Karst cave |
| Entrances | 1 |
| Access | Public |
| Show cave opened | yes |
| Show cave length | ? |
| Website | Official website |
The Pastena Caves (Italian: Grotte di Pastena) are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Pastena, in the province of Frosinone, Lazio.
The caves were discovered in 1926 by Carlo Franchetti [1] and were opened for tourism one year later. They belong to the "Consorzio Grotte Pastena e Collepardo" . The site, situated 4.5 km out of the town of Pastena, on the road to Castro dei Volsci (close to the frazioni of Casanova-Cavatelle and Collevento), is divided into 2 sections: the "active" inferior and the "fossile" superior. The second one is so named due to the fact that the process of dripping (from stalactites to stalagmites) has not been active in several millennia.
A scene of Fantozzi va in pensione (Neri Parenti, 1988, with Paolo Villaggio), was filmed in the caves, even if in the fiction it was in Postojna Cave.
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the river Ardèche, in the Gorges de l'Ardèche.
Cosquer Cave is located in the Calanque de Morgiou in Marseille, France, near Cap Morgiou. The entrance to the cave is located 37 m (121 ft) underwater, due to the Holocene sea level rise. The cave contains various prehistoric rock art engravings. Its submarine entrance was discovered in 1985 by Henri Cosquer, a professional diver. The underwater passage leading to the cave was progressively explored until 1990 by cave divers without the divers being aware of the archaeological character of the cave. It is only in the last period (1990–1991) of the progressive underwater explorations that the cave divers emerged in the non-submerged part of the cave. The prehistoric paintings were not immediately discovered by the divers to first emerge from the other side of the sump. The cave was named after Henri Cosquer, when its existence was made public in 1991, after three divers became lost in the cave and died.
Castellana Grotte is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. Grotte means "caves" in Italian.
Pastena is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about 90 kilometres (56 mi) southeast of Rome and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Frosinone.
La Balme-les-Grottes is a commune in the Isère department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France.
The Monti Ausoni or Ausoni Mountains constitute a mountain range in southern Lazio, in central Italy. It is part of the Antiappennini, a group running from the Apennines chain to the Tyrrhenian Sea. They are bounded to the north by the Monti Lepini and to the south by the Monti Aurunci. They take the name from the ancient tribe of the Ausoni. The Monti Ausoni consist mainly of friable limestone. Altitudes vary from hills to the 1,152 m of Cima del Nibbio and the 1,141 m of Monte Calvo. Near Pastena are the Grotte di Pastena (caves).
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The Castellana Caves are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte, in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy.
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The Pertosa Caves, co-officially named Pertosa-Auletta Caves since 2012, are a karst show cave system located in the municipality of Pertosa, in the province of Salerno, Campania, Italy.
The Castelcivita Caves are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castelcivita, in the province of Salerno, Campania, southern Italy.
The Toirano Caves are a karst cave system in the municipality of Toirano, in the province of Savona, Liguria, Italy.
The Borgio Verezzi Caves, also named Valdemino, are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Borgio Verezzi, in the province of Savona, Liguria. They are a show cave.
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Grotte de Lombrives or Lombrives Cave is a large natural cavern located in Ornolac-Ussat-les-Bains, at the eastern edge of the Pyrénées Ariégeoises Natural Regional Park, in the Ariège department of Occitanie, in southwestern France.
The caves of Arcy-sur-Cure are a series of caves located on the commune of Arcy-sur-Cure, Burgundy, France. Some of them contained archaeological artefacts, from the Mousterian to Gallo-Roman times.
The Pair-non-Pair Cave is located near the village of Prignac-et-Marcamps, Aquitaine:Gironde (33) department in France. Only discovered in 1881 it is known for remarkable prehistoric parietal engravings - petroglyphic representations of wild animals, "which rank among the most ancient examples of art made by prehistoric" humans, dating back to between 30,000 and 25,000 BP, the Aurignacian cultural period of the Upper Paleolithic.
The Schmerling Caves are a group of caves located in Wallonia on the right bank of the stream called the Awirs, near the village of Awirs in Flémalle, Belgium. The caves are notable for their past fossil finds, particularly of hominins. They were explored in 1829 by Philippe-Charles Schmerling, who discovered, in the lower cave, the remains of two individuals, one of which, now known as Engis 2, was a fossil of the first Neanderthal ever found; the other was a Neolithic homo sapiens. Also known as Trô Cwaheur or Trou Caheur, this lower cave has since collapsed. A third cave was destroyed because of work on the adjacent quarry, the Ancienne Carrière des Awirs.
The Grotte de Gabillou also known as Grotte de las Agnelas is a cave in France in which prehistoric ornaments stemming from the paleolithic period exist. It is situated in the commune of Sourzac in the department of Dordogne, Nouvelle Aquitaine and is a private property. Its sediments are from the Maastrichtian era.