Hi Philip,

here in Italy we have a region that is pretty full of sinkholes and other karst phenomenon: Friuli Venezia Giulia. Of course there are many archaeological sites there. The first one that I remember ow is the Mithraeum of Duino (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duino_Mithraeum), but of course there are many other examples. I hope it is useful, have a nice day!

Thanks Luca - just the soft of thing I am looking for! I will definitely do more research on Friuli Venezia Giulia. 

would you count the cenote of central America as karstic features, if you would then the majority of large scale Mayan sites would qualify most famously Chichen Itza, indeed it has been formulated that without them Mayan civilisation could not have arisen since they provided the essential water supply for these cities

Hi Philip,

check out the following article:

https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/zfg_suppl/detail/60/86474/Archaeology_in_karst_areas_areas

Unfortunately i don´t have access to the full text but i think this article would be helpful for answering your question.

Best regards, Sebastian

Thanks Timothy - yes I guess so. I'm really looking for any examples where there are archaeological sites in close physical association with dissolution features in order to look at how this impacts the preservation and conservation of those sites...

The reason I ask about this is that I've been working on an earthwork site which unexpectedly turns out to partially overlie a sinkhole - so there seems to be a fairly obvious heritage management issue. So any and all examples are good food for thought!

in which case although they are not dissolution features you might like to look for the problems caused by the collapse of mines under Bath e.g.

Hawkins, A.B. Bull Eng Geol Environ (2013) 72: 353. doi:10.1007/s10064-013-0481-8.

this will give some ideas of conservation problems caused by sudden collapses of underground structures, Hawkins may even be a valuable contact for your researches

another possibility is the UK government's Coal Authority, I notice that they offer information about properties affected by subsidence and include that caused by brine pumping from Cheshire salt mines, this may have instances that are procedurally similar to what you are looking for

On the western side of the Dead Sea one can find numerous archaeological sites and sink holes, the latter being a recent phenomenon due to the manner in which water from the Jordan river is being misused before it empties into the Dead Sea. . 

Thanks Joe! This is very interesting. This is salt karstification, right? I can find a few papers about the formation of the Dead Sea sinkholes, but do you know of any papers about the impact of these features on any archaeological sites?

Thanks again for your help!

You may be interested in work on the surface near High pasture Cave on the Island of Skye, currently being written up, where Iron Age people have interacted with a cave system (votive offerings, burials, etc.) in a former sink entrance which they modified by adding stone steps to improve access.  The former entrance was then filled in later during the settlement phase.  See the dig's website (http://www.high-pasture-cave.org/) for an overview. A summary of the excavation was presented by Steven Birch in the recent (2016) QRA field guide to the Quaternary of Skye (CK Ballantyne 7 JJ Lowe, eds.); I contributed a short summary of the cave geomorphology.

Hi Philip,

below you can examine some palaeolithic examples from Greece. You can find also relevant references.

Chapter Megalo Karvounari Revisited

Article The exploitation of the thesprotian wetlands (NW Greece) dur...

Chapter The Middle Palaeolithic Bifacial Tools from Megalo Karvounari

Article Karstic Wetland Dwellers of Middle Palaeolithic Epirus, Greece

Sadly, not enough Archaeological work being done in Assynt (North West Scotland), but there are several historic sites in and around sink holes. There's a cave network - the "Inchnadamph bone caves",  with a sink hole immediately below them which generations of kids have decided - wrongly of course - must be a mammoth trap. (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/secretGeology/theBoneCaves.html)  and (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/secretGeology/theBoneCaves.html) - neither mention the sink hole, but it is there. There's also a pre-clearance mill nearby at Eader a Chalda, where it looks like a cold store (guess - it is a building/shed) has been built in the sink hole - presume it's a cold store as it would be almost permanently in shadow. Numerous other sites locally in the area which are close to, but not in sink holes. Limestone made for great pasture.

Happy to send on OS Grids or photo's if you need (just joined this as a 1st year student, so no idea what format/rules should be).

Al the best

Dave

Just questioning David's point above about a sinkhole 'below' (downvalley?) the Bone Caves - if you mean The Elephant Trap, this is actually a temporary resurgence point for water during high discharge conditions.  Work over many years (too many?) in and around the said Bone Caves suggests they have never been used by man as anything more than temporary habitation sites.  They may not fit Philip's criteria for study, therefore.  If they do, however, we have been involved in a site management study of caves in the area (see my listed 'contributions' on Researchgate), where SNH were keen to assess human impacts with various key cave spaces ...(e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308792153_A_Baseline_Survey_of_the_caves_of_the_Creag_nan_Uamh_Bone_Caves_and_Bear_Cave_Assynt)

I think that Philip's initial question relates to clear archaelogical sites and their management in areas where the ground is prone to collapse due to subterranean solution processes, though, which is not the case in Assynt to my knowledge.

Technical Report A Baseline Survey of the caves of the Creag nan Uamh Bone Ca...

I'd draw your attention to work done on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico: Spatial and Physical Characteristics of Rejolladas in Northern Yucatan, Mexico: Implications for Ancient Maya Agriculture and Settlement Patterns.  Geoarchaeology 2014:156-172.

Hello, of course, many pre-Hispanic Mayan sites settled around cenotes in the northern lowlands in the Yucatan Peninsula. Moreover, I work with human remains from submerged caves on the eastern coast in Quintana Roo, Mexico, which have between 9000 and 13000 years before present, in my page you can find some of our publications. regards

I know the case of a megalithic chamber built over a sinkhole (La Raiz III). There is some information about it (in Spanish) including a drawing -at page 716-

https://www.academia.edu/984752/Caracterización_de_estructuras_megal%C3%ADticas_y_usos_del_territorio_en_el_occidente_de_Cantabria

or at -pp. 296:299-

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Agustin_Diez_Castillo/publication/268277349_tesis_A_Diez/links/546736870cf2397f782b793c.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/984752/Caracterización_de_estructuras_megal%C3%ADticas_y_usos_del_territorio_en_el_occidente_de_Cantabria

La Cueva del Angel, Lucena, Spain.

http://antropicos.blogspot.com/2013/12/la-cueva-del-angel-de-lucena.html

You may ask professor Frank Falkenstein from the department of prehistory at Würzburg Univesity. He is working on dolines.

[email protected]

There are also a number of Paleoindian and Archaic archaeological sites in Florida associated with sinkholes. Some of the best knows are: 

(1) Page-Ladson, a reported pre-Clovis mastodon kill site south of Sarasota (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/14/archaeology-florida-sinkhole-ancient-humans-mastodon-knife-bones-bering-strait);

(2) Warm Mineral Spring, a Formative/Archaic/Paleoindian site, also near Sarasota (http://dspace.rubicon-foundation.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/9073/AAUS1986_9.pdf?sequence=1); and

(3) Little Spring near Sarasota - "The water level in the spring has varied over time. Twelve to thirteen thousand years ago the ocean level was about 100 meters (more than 300 feet) lower than at present, drawing down the water table in Florida, and the water level in Little Salt Spring was 27 meters (89 feet) lower than at present. The basin around the spring and a slough extending away from it are filled with moist, soft peat. Hundreds of burials dating from 5,200 to 6,800 years ago have been found in the slough. As has happened in other wetland burials in Florida, such as at the Windover Archaeological Site, brain matter survived in many of the skulls. In the 1970s the overturned shell of an extinct giant land tortoise was found on the 27-meter (89 ft) ledge. A wooden stake had been driven between the carapace and the plastron, and there is evidence of a fire under the tortoise. It appears that the tortoise had been cooked in its shell. The radiocarbon date for the wooden stake was 12,030 years ago, and for a bone from the tortoise, 13,450 years ago. Large numbers of human bones have been recovered from the spring itself, but were not collected under controlled conditions."  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Salt_Spring)

Take a look at Slovenia - where the word "karst" originally comes from - there are very many sites of arious periods near or even in sink-holes. Sink-holes have been used as sites for hoarding bronzes and/or disposal of the dead.

Where I live, in the Bauland area in the northeastern part of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, until some decades sink-holes were used to deposite cadavers of cattle.

Here in Germany there is an ongoing project on the archaeology of karstic features in gypsum in middle Franconia. Quite a few articles have appeared but alas nearly exclusively in German. You can find the homepages with bibliography of the project (yes, in German again) under the links below.

http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/?id=165993

http://www.vfg.uni-wuerzburg.de/forschung/projekte/dfg_forschungsprojekt_mensch_umwelt_beziehungen_im_fraenkischen_gipskarst/stand_der_erforschung_von_vorgeschichtlichen_fundstellen_im_gipskarst/

Hi Philip.

There is some discussion about this in relation to the Maya Yucatan Peninsula, specifically the lowlands. Both these papers should hopefully be useful, and have good bibliographies to mine.

Article Population, Development, and Environment on the Yucatan Peni...

Article Human and natural impacts on fluvial and karst depresions of...

Pulo di Molfetta (Bari, Apulia, Italy) is certainly relevant for you, as a multi-period site on the border and inside a karstic huge sinkhole, starting since Neolithic and archaeologically known since late XIX/early XX century research.

http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2008-117.pdf

Enjoy !

Best

Alessandro Vanzetti

Cuba has 65 % of kars surface. There are many archaeological sites in relation with cave, and other kartics forms but in dry zone. We have archaeological expression like funeral cave, pictogaphy, habitational caves, etc.

Thanks everyone for the fantastic response! Some excellent examples that I was not aware of.

In north-west Cradle of Humankind  (South Africa) and in  a dolomite cave is 'Uitkomst Cave" I excavated 1952-4 finding Circa 1880 Iron Age style artefacts on surface , 2 copper smelting furnaces d14dated 250 BP  15-30 cm below surface and  c14 dated

8000BP Late Stone Age artefacts 35-50cm below surface. 'Prehistory of Transn years ago.vaal"See  photo of cave in book.Shows what nearby australopithecine caverns were like 2 million years ago.

The Cueva del Angel, Lucena, Spain is an excellent example of what you are looking for:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257453530_The_Cueva_del_Angel_Lucena_Spain_An_Acheulean_hunters_habitat_in_the_South_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula

Article The Cueva del Angel (Lucena, Spain): An Acheulean hunters ha...

Just stumbled across this old question on Google. I happen to be doing my PhD thesis in the project that Rengert Elburg mentioned. I am mainly concerned with the soil-geographic problems. The project is almost over and we are working on final data and reports. We also submitted the first international publication. Hope there will be more...

Follow the project here if you are interested:

https://www.researchgate.net/project/DFG-project-Te295-15-1-and-15-2-Prehistoric-human-environment-interaction-in-the-gypsum-karst-area-of-the-Windsheimer-Bucht-Northern-Bavaria-sinkholes-as-archives-for-settlement-history-and-lands

If you are interested in the interaction of Mayan civilization with sinkholes you might want to check out these articles:

Chapter Influence of Mayan land use on soils and pedosediments in ka...

Article Pedosediments of karstic sinkholes in the eolianites of NE Y...

Article Micromorphology of a Soil Catena in Yucatán: Pedogenesis and...

I remember a project at the department of prehistoric archaeology at the Univesity of Würzburg.

Rainer Schreg published an article on "Hülen", small - often artificial - ponds in the karst landscape of the Swabian Alb:

Book Hülen und Tuff : der Mensch und das Wasser auf der Schwäbischen Alb

http://hdl.handle.net/10900/59815

https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/59815/Schreg%202009_10%20%e2%80%93%20H%c3%bclen%20und%20Tuff.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Best regards,

Stefan

Dear Philip,

a) In South Africa there are some archaeological sites within sinkholes, e.g. Kathu Pan (see P. Beaumont /D. Morris 1990, Guide to arch. sites in the Northern Cape, Mc Gregor Museum Kimberley).

b) In Thuringia (East Germany) exist an old research tradition about carstic processes and content of carstic fissures (incuding palaeontological and/or archaeological finds).

One of these sites is called 'Gamsenberg' with an archaeological find layer around 70 ka. Few publication you can find here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dieter_Schaefer/publications

especially:

Article Zur Stratigraphie periglaziärer Decken im Thüringischen Berg...

Article Zur Charakterisierung des weichselzeitlichen Freilandfundpla...

Conference Paper Schaefer, D.; Jaeger, K.-D.; Bussemer, S.; Podlech, C.; Hein...

Conference Paper Schaefer, D. 2017, 30 Jahre Grabung in der eiszeitlichen Spa...

Good wishes and greetings, Dieter

There is an interesting study about the roman explotation/use of a karstic complex in Sorbas, Almeria, Spain, to get their famous lapis secularis (mirror plaster or stone, popularly known as 'eyeglass'): https://issuu.com/lapisspecularis/docs/afa_23/10

Hello there,

You can look for Nesher-Ramla in Israel.

I think I didn't already quote a Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1500 BCE) site in Liguria, Italy: Bric Tana is located in a wide sinkhole fill, close to a sinkhole pit. It is not clear whether there is a relation, anyway.

Bullettino di paletnologia italiana, n.s., a. 7, vol. 89 (1998)

There is an ongoing ERC projekt: palaeosilkroad (https://www.palaeosilkroad.eu/). Palaeosilkroad is a multi-disciplinary archaeological project aiming to discover Paleolithic sites in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor and test the hypothesis that Pleistocene dispersals correlated with climatic pulses during the last Glacial Cycle (ca. 110 000 - 15 000 years ago).

A Preprint on " Finding karstic caves and rockshelters in the Inner Asian mountain corridor using predictive modelling and field survey" is available here: https://eartharxiv.org/vz3b5/

The Maya site of Chichen Itza in Mexico. The site is next to the Sacred Cenote. Which is a large sinkhole. Plenty of investigation and preservation and heritage management have been conducted here. Google it.

Cueva del Angel, Spain.