Caves can preserve history, hide entire ecosystems, and turn into places of mystery, danger, and discovery. From ancient footprints and forgotten artwork to enormous underground chambers and eerie legends, these facts reveal just how strange the world beneath our feet can be.
Masson Left His Mark
1. In the 1930s, French explorers believed they were the first Europeans ever to arrive at some historical Afghan caves, but they were startled to see a wall inscription that said: “if any fool this high samootch explore, Know Charles Masson has been here before.”
2. Missouri’s Marvel Cave is so immense that, in 1994, five hot-air balloons were flown inside it at the same time.
3. The familiar image of cavemen is misleading, because very few Stone Age people actually lived in caves. Most were nomadic hunter-gatherers who stayed in temporary shelters like tents or huts, and caves mainly survive the best-preserved artifacts.
4. An English cave was known as “The Devil’s A*se” from the 1500s until 1880, and it was renamed Peak Cavern shortly before Queen Victoria came for a concert visit.
5. In France’s Chauvet Cave, a set of footprints from a young child and a wolf or dog walking side by side was discovered, suggesting that human-dog companionship may have begun before the last Ice Age.
6. The Bracken Bat Cave in Texas is home to the largest known bat colony in the world. More than 20 million bats live in the cave, which is more bats than there are people living in Mumbai, India, one of the world’s largest human cities.
7. In 1971, Soviet geologists struck a cavern of natural gas. The ground under the rig gave way, creating a hole 70 m across. To prevent a release of harmful gas, they set it on fire, believing it would burn out in a few days. 41 years later it is still ablaze. Locals call it “The Door to Hell.”
8. All four of the world’s deepest caves are in Abkhazia in Georgia. The record-holder is Veryovkina Cave, which descends at least 1.3 miles. Because of the dangers and the need for specialized rope techniques, “the round trip —top to bottom and back— takes professional speleologists about a week.”
9. The oldest known figurative painting was found in a cave called Lubang Jeriji Saléh Cave on Borneo island, Indonesia: a bull depiction has been dated to 40,000 years old. It is not known which species of humans made the paintings or what became of them.
10. A skeleton from 7150 B.C. discovered in 1903 in an English cave (Gough’s Cave) was recently identified as a DNA match for a history teacher who lives nearby.
Blue Lake Rhino Cast
11. In Washington State, the Blue Lake Rhino Cave holds a 14.5 million-year-old cast of an early Rhino ancestor located about 300-feet up the side of a cliff, and it formed when basalt lava gradually buried the corpse as it floated upside down in an ancient lake.
12. Mexico’s Cave of Swallows is the world’s largest cave shaft, measuring almost 1,000 feet wide at the bottom and 1,100 feet deep, and it shelters many birds, but despite its name, almost no swallows.
13. India’s Ajanta Caves consist of 29 joined caves that contain paintings from over 3 religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and they were built in 520 B.C. The cave system covers an area of 8,242 hectares, which makes it one of the largest man-made cave structures ever built.
14. The Vrtoglavica Cave in Slovenia features a 600-meter vertical drop, making it the longest such drop in the world.
15. Massacre Cave is a cave on a small island in Scotland. When the Clan MacLeod attacked the Island, all 395 of the islanders took shelter inside the cave. After the MacLeods found them, they lit a fire at the cave mouth and let the smoke suffocate everyone inside.
16. Romania’s Movile Cave was sealed away from the outside world for 5.5 million years, and scientists have found dozens of unique lifeforms living in its poisonous gases and water.
17. Every Sunday, Three Boys explored a small cave called Lummelunda Cave in Sweden with matches and planks. After two years of regular exploring, in 1948, a stone dropped and revealed a passage into a much larger cave system. The first hall beyond the passage was named “The Mountain King’s Hall.”
18. In 1839, Dr. John Croghan purchased Mammoth Cave in Central Kentucky and converted it into a tuberculosis hospital. The effort was a huge failure, and Dr. Croghan died of Tuberculosis.
19. Hang Sơn Đoòng, one of the world’s largest caves in Vietnam, is so immense that it has its own river, jungle, and climate.
20. Am-Phu cave in Vietnam features “hell” themes, with sculpted demons “and fanged devils bathed in sinister red light, where hands reach up from the waters below and river monsters threaten to gnash (visitors’) souls to bits.” It sits under the mountain linked with heaven.
Mexico Crystal Death Cave
21. In Mexico, the Giant Crystal Cave contains crystals weighing up to 50 tonnes, has an average humidity of 100% and a temperature of 58°C. This means the coldest place in the cave is the lungs, where water would condense, and being exposed for more than 10 minutes would cause death by drowning.
22. Cosquer Cave, an underwater cave in southern France, has cave art on its walls that is more than 20,000 years old, and the art was probably created when sea levels were lower. The images show Auks, Bison, wild horses, and more.
23. The earliest known modern human fossils discovered outside Africa were found in Apidima Cave in Southern Greece. They are dated to somewhere between 170,000 and 210,000 years old.
24. The oldest known sewing needle is 50,000 years old. In 2016, scientists in Siberia discovered an ancient sewing needle in a mountain cave. It was made from the bones of a large and unidentified bird.
25. The oldest known human-made structure is the stone wall in Theopetra cave in Greece. It was built over 23,000 years ago, while the cave itself had been occupied by humans since about 135,000 BC.
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