The forgotten coastline. In the footsteps of mammoth hunters. (With some routing help from the board of tourism.)
Date(s): April 2010. Photos by Aymar. 1 - 86 of 86 Total. 1308 Visits.
1 Lonetal, Urspring
2 Lonetal, Urspring This was the only vantage point which did exclude distracting infra structure. The characteristic water color of limestone wells (turquoise-green) has to be imagined. The cruising ducks are the same as on any mill pond. Diving is not explicitly prohibited (a few crummy, bent up votive swords, who asks for more).
General Lone lore (most of it info board based): Limestone springs are plentiful but their outflow is often endangered. The same forces that gives will also take away. The name of the game is siphoning off. In somewhat more detail: The Fils and Neckar have been encroaching steadily on the Lone's drainage basin. The encroaching is not limited to the Lone. The Danube herself is likewise tapped. Part of her waters wind up in North Sea. Heart valve defect or whatever the medical term. The windfall profit of the Rhine, the ultimate beneficiary in sheer water volume, can be explained in part by the hot knife through butter metaphor. Limestone may not look very much l...
3 Lonetal, Lonsee
4 Lonetal, Halzhausen derelict building
5 Lonetal, Halzhausen I missed the top of the relieve arch. Minor sloppiness award.
6 Lonetal, Westerstetten Toeing the line. (The pictures are arranged 'en aval', Lone downwards. Some unavoidable circadian anachronisms (return trip). - The known prehistoric sites are clustered in the lower part of the Lone, before she 'hooks up' with the Brenz.)
7 Lonetal, Westerstetten Half the churches in the region sport onion shaped Baroque towers, the rest opt for something less exotic (their steeples being made up out of glued together lozenge areas). Whatever you define as standard. This church is Roman Catholic but there are no hard and fast rules. Some Baroque churches are Lutheran.
8 Lonetal, Westerstetten Tango of the blasted oaks (any B-movie title at hand should do).
9 Lonetal near Breitlingen cluster of houses with a smoking chimney
10 Lonetal near Breitlingen In case there is any question about actual daybreak temperatures. Denuded torsos can be spotted two hours later. Suitable activity (wood chopping) always provided.
11 Lonetal near Breitlingen it is sometimes difficult to avoid an idyllic motive
12 Lonetal near Breitlingen forest edge pure
13 Lonetal, probably Kahlenstein Encounter at the edge of the forest. By strictly scientific analysis, a white bearded carpet merchant bartering with a fish monger. The turtle shield on his back a dead giveaway. Variant title, the pig in the poke deal.
14 Lonetal, Mehlsack 'Mehlsack'. Will amend that to, the flower sack left standing after the porter took a rest break. Completely concealed by the undergrowth. Borderline moral legend territory even as the face of the man in the moon.
15 Lonetal, Fohlenhaus a Neolithic camp site
16 Lonetal, Fohlenhaus
17 Lonetal, dog's mercury Male plant. Dioecious species. Purgative (euphemism for borderline poisonous). Spurge family. Not sure how it is done but the Lonetal forests are nearly equally divided between dog's mercury and wood anemone. There is very little mingling.
18 Lonetal, fir stem It is a bark beetle gallery rather than runic writing. It is also one of those trick pictures where you can never be quite sure if you should interpret given data as innie or outie (raised or sunken tracks in this case). 'Haut' and 'bas' can be tricky concepts.
19 Lonetal The landscape may be great but the actual Lone is not a very impressive body of water, at least in the here and now. Anywhere well within long jump distance. Suitable maybe for nutshell regattas. With enlarged time horizon: the most sophisticated vessel to ever navigate its giant, two foot rapids, may well have been an inflated mammoth bladder.
20 Lonetal borderline park landscape
21 Lonetal, raised hide
22 Lonetal, raised hide Raised hide. Waiting for the onslaught. Sauron's hordes of orcs could amass this very minute behind the next hill. Realistically, the woolly rhino will never come back. - The forested parts of the Lonetal are studded in gauntlet fashion (whatever you can run) with raised hides. Understandable that the mammoths one day decided to call it day. Let us retire to that big old age house on Wrangel Island.
23 Lonetal near Nerenstetten Spring sowing in progress. This particular device, tube mail patent pending, will sow multiple rows of Indian corn. The big hopper in front should replenish the seed corn in the smaller bins in the rear.
24 Lonetal near Nerenstetten Seppuku cut away view - in any case convoluted. (In slightly better taste - Laokoon: do you need a hand with the hook up.)
25 Lonetal near Nerenstetten The turf cutter (far left) is part of the guidance system. It will center the return trip, when the now raised right cutter will lowered. Between boustrophedon and retracing.
26 Lonetal near Nerenstetten A common type of corrugated vault structure in the Lone valley (always where you need them most). The close up is from a pedestrian underpass. Technically: always astonishing how much you can whittle away from the keystone part. Nearly wafer-thin. Hope it was planned that way.
27 Lonetal near Nerenstetten Always at hand, a bucket of stones for scaring off harpies.
28 Lonetal The winter harvest of frost stones looks good.
29 Lonetal More Xanthoria parietina. In this case thallus anchored (elder?). Verbal close up on the bowl shaped apothecia: split-leveled fountains, flow over rims, with the water turned off.
30 Lonetal
31 Lonetal, teasel Neanderthal comb (I am opposed to the modern spelling. You could just as well spell Arabic numerals with Roman letters. Modest anti gematria stance. Scriptural, op code and data, thou shalt not seethe them in the same kettle - or something along that line.)
32 Lonetal, Rauhe Halde mystery shed
33 Lonetal, Rauhe Halde there is a bend at the end of every long stretch
34 Lonetal, Rauhe Halde dwarfed by nature
35 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle This particular group of grottoes and pit caves may have been pounded out by tidal action. - It is not completely clear why you need a shelter at this location. Chalk it up to piggy-back spirit.
36 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle Mousterian artifacts (short check, Neanderthal tool kits) from the Mesolithic period ('Mittelsteinzeit' sic). Make it Middle Paleolithic, please. Wisdom of the ages, you will always get away with big errors. The crouched burials, mentioned later, would belong into the Mesolithic era.
Digs in the 1880ties by Ludwig Bürger. The name smithy (stone smithy) sums up his findings rather well. As for the location, the better lit cobbler shop.
I did wonder if there was once a well nearby. The moss covered ravine between Bocksteinhöhle and Bocksteingrotte. (One cave comes never alone, not in the Lonetal. Always clusters.)
37 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle pumpkin fun (should have looked even more impressive from the outside with a need-fire blazing inside. Beacons in the night. Not that fuel was all too plentiful at the time.)
38 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle Upriver vista. It takes all kinds of horizons to uplift the spirit.
39 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle With a great view on the local Links. The Lonetal as prehistoric fairway. Better to get used to the idea.
40 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle Somebody forgot to lit his camp fire. - Possibly a case of last minute twinges of conscience. There is a big 'prevent forest fires' board in close proximity.
42 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle Not sure if the petrified door mat was part of the original cave inventory. Charitable hand-downs crop up in the most unlikely places. - The meandering, dungeon type border (Skara Brae) could hint at hitherto unsuspected trade links with Cnossos. In any case highly repetitive.
43 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle just picturesque and splotchy
44 Lonetal, Bocksteinhöhle Xanthoria parietina, an unexpected beneficiary of phosphate enriched dust. The lamb's quarters (Chenopodium album) of the lichens.
45 Lonetal the new oxbow fashion
46 Lonetal The Lone or what is left of her in some sections. (Watermill free zone.) Various remedies have been tried over the centuries. The problem, plugging a leaking river bed is not quite as easy as patching a barn roof. Presently there are high hopes that reintroduced beavers will be up to the job. Takes some time to teach them how to swing a hammer properly but it may well be worth it in the end.
47 Lonetal, Hohlenstein Stadel The lion figurine and a hyena mauled femur bone of a Neanderthal, part of it, were found in the Stadel. No connection. Neanderthal flunked higher arts. (Until Jean M Auel proves the contrary or something new comes up.) Rephrased, different tenants at different times. The entrance to the Bear cave is to the right. It hardly bears mentioning what kind of bones were found there. Hats off, birth hour of a literary genre. The Rulamann book by DF Weinland was a bestseller in its time (Bismarck era and beyond). - Both caves entrances face North. No direct sunlight even at midday. No vintner would ever have chosen such an abode. Well, nobody claims that they were vintners. Lack of suitable Ararats for once.
The Adidas stone, a pebble with three paired, 15.000 year old stripes, nobody says they could count, was found under a small overhang between the two caves. Some head burials in more recent time. Middle Neolithic era, ca 6000 BC. (Honor thy enemy. No direct bearing but some ant...
48 Lonetal, Hohlenstein-Stadel That certain kind of bank vault feeling. The adjacent Bear cave is secured with the same kind of portcullis.
49 Lonetal, Hohlenstein-Stadel The evoked counterfoil goes back to Hobbes (and rhymes with: nasty, brief and short). Hardly a serious contender even if its attractiveness is easy to understand. Apologetic context: It is all too easy to poke fun at willfully misunderstood representations.
The fact that paleolithic art does not fall into the all too familiar category of Kindergarten creations was admittedly an issue when Altamira was discovered. Background, higher civilization must have some underpinnings. Just for the shake of highlighting, missing board of education. Wat Tyler, I see the point. There are probably ways around that. At the very least one can sidestep the issue.
The info board endorses by and large the Breuil interpretation of paleolithic art. The href part, 'Les trois Frères' and costumed shamans, are Breuil territory even if the name is omitted. Keywords: sympathetic magic, applied, shaman aided utilitarianism. Not completely sure if Ortega y Gasset would have agreed. Pert...
50 Lonetal, Hohlenstein-Stadel Cro-Magnon sculpturer at work (the info board is from Vogelherd site but the workshop snapshot belongs to the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave).
The Neanderthal tag is misleading. Just crammed for space. The tag belongs to the chronological axis to the right. The facial features are somewhat borderline.
The board comes with a one of those always popular pop quizzes. (Win a fabulous prize and see prehistoric New Guinea.) The answer can be found, as usual, in the advertised product. You just have to take a closer look. Retention game. In this case the prominently displayed ivory tusk in the foreground. If you are hopelessly stuck, backside peeking is permitted.
Right side: somebody lost his Bic cigarette lighter (the ball shaped pyrite). Creature comforts of the Vogelherd dwellers. For the suspicious mind, flint lock stealth technology. One info board, not this one, makes it the oldest found zippo artifact to date.
The Riek book cover from 1931 shows that the Lonetal h...
51 Lonetal, Lindenau The conveniently located ramp to the highland mesa. In present day parlance, the walkway from the Bear cave to Lindenau. (Some sunken road aspects). Mixed oak beech forest. The canopy still unfurled. The forest floor carpeted with Anemone nemorosa and Anemone ranunculoides. If it is blue it will be Anemone hepatica. Odd man out, non Crowfoot clan that is, some scattered Oxalis.
52 Lonetal, Lindenau Anemone nemorosa, wall to wall carpeting
53 Lonetal, Lindenau Mossy rock strewn with wind-blown branch debris. (Sometimes you can see bones everywhere.)
54 Lonetal, Lindenau Picnic area with a smarter than average bear. - The map did show Roman ruins in the immediate vicinity. Probably well camouflaged.
55 Lonetal, Lindenau In full Egyptian splendor. Welcome figure (Indian) of a theme oriented coffee shop / inn. To dispel any misconceptions, this representation is somewhat scaled up. I did not visit the museum in Ulm to measure the original but standard trophy height can be assumed. Whatever you can hold in one hand and wave to the crowds. For the mathematically inclined, the natural curvature of tusks imposes limits for carving straight backed caryatids. (Highly unlikely steam bending, the secret of the narwhals, always excepted.) A slight orthopedic correction, over and above the scaling, is suspected in this case. Something which you still cannot do with the earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. Incidentally, was it made out of a right or a left tusk. - Whimsical: It was actually a toss up between the Wizard of Oz lion and this guy (who may actually have been a she).
If a second coffee shop is ever be opened it will be undoubtedly fronted by a fertility Goddess. The Michelin Man which...
56 Lonetal, Lindenau Barnyard pulleys are always handy if you want to set up obelisks. - The only explanation for the two wheel arrangement I could come up with: load spreading. I would have favored a hoop attachment. Selfsame mechanical advantage but better utilization of the given beam strength.
57 Lonetal, Lindenau This is a so called sunken church. Keyword: subsidence. And some claim that even semi-trailers can be swallowed up over night, prime payload of seasoned oak included. Maybe it would help if they set up warning placards. Overnight parking at your own risk. - At the far horizon, opposite direction, the hazy cooling towers of the nuclear power station of Wörth on the Danube. One more possible culprit. As long as there is no shortage of freaky events.
58 Lonetal, Lindenau It is a lonely job but someone has to do it.
59 Lonetal, Vogelherd SE approach (from Stetten). The Lone flows on the other side.
60 Lonetal, Vogelherd Hunter look out. I had that idea long before the info board was set up.
Bottom row, highlights from the Vogelherd menagerie. The latest in Aurignacian scrimshaw making. In the paleolithic context: when you had to wait days for the next bus. Uncontested: Riek did strike it rich. - Some details: I did not see the mammoth in the green coffee bean at first (far left). You have to switch from outline detecting mode to intaglio awareness. - The 'coffee bean' is the only artifact where I can spot a rudimentary eyelet. Still possible that they were used as pendents. Evil eye wards, something of that nature.
61 Lonetal, Vogelherd The whole Vogelherd is just riddled with caves (cave ins might be more accurate). This one ends after a few meters. The one at the North side is larger.
62 Lonetal, Vogelherd Plinking. Bull's eye even. If only the recruitment officer could see me now.
63 Lonetal, Vogelherd The Vogelherd icon: the 35.000 year old wild horse. Can just spot a dorsal zigzag pattern. Some tattoo quality. Either that or leftover zebra stripes. - Pop quiz comment: the true problem is how to wedge in the Mesolithic period. Lost somewhere between the Paleolithic hunters & gathers and the Neolithic subsistence farmers. Tentatively: windfall profits of warmer, post glacial climes, the Scriptural change in lifestyle (sowing, sweating and harvesting) can wait. Actual advent, reasonable ballpark figure, Northern Europe, 5000 BC. Strikes the hour of the megalithic self expression. Secret recipe: levée en masse. The lazy days of figurine carving are over.
64 Lonetal, Vogelherd In small ad terms: Southward facing property, best business location.
65 Lonetal, Vogelherd
66 Lonetal, Vogelherd The mystery of the reddish ivory is not revealed. Diet related, algae colored? Equally mysterious, the x-marks. They look to my untrained eye as if they were all done at the same time. As distinct from on demand signatures. Notches on colt stocks, new transfer pictures on the cowlings of fighter planes, something along that line. Could always have been some kind of more permanent tally stick. Pocket calender, initiation gift, maybe even birthday candles.
The left panel presents a Malthusian pop quiz. Overcrowding in the Aurignac.
67 Lonetal, Vogelherd Spear Thrower Aided Hunting
It is assumed that the late Neanderthal as well as Cro-Magnon did master the spear thrower technique (in combination with leaf shaped spear heads). Q: "spear thrower..probably used by the end of the Middle Paleolithic" (which ended around 50.000 before present) - Müller-Beck. The picture seems to depict a Neanderthal (the info board of the Charlotte cave actually added a hint of red hair). The device is only dated back to ca. 20.000 BC, early Magdalenian time frame, in Campbell. There is no disagreement on actual usage. The semi animation shows a running start. Suitable leather clothing is provided. Not from the info board: The technique may have been particular advantageous for a hunter of the open plains (ice age tundra). Treeless plains stripped of all concealment. Hard times for ambush hunters who dispatched their prey at close quarters.
Homepage links:
68 Lonetal, Stetten ob Lonetal The local castle. There is a brewery in close vicinity.
69 Lonetal Uncultivated ground near the Celtic ditch and wall sanctum.
70 Lonetal, Celtic ditch and wall sanctum Lost in an entanglement of brambles. I would file it under malicious humor. In clear, the sign is all you get. (Give me skip full of wind charms and discarded motor blocks, as long as it swings, and I will rig up something worthy of that name.) As an aside, everybody knows about Fata Morganas. How about whole forests filled with the sound of pealing church bells (with no church bells yet invented).
71 Lonetal, vernal flora White, saffron and lilac. Anemone nemorosa, Anemone ranunculoides and Corydalis cava respectively. The last one is a member of the Fumariceae family. Distantly related with Poppy.
72 Lonetal, Lontal no hidden message, just liked the colors
73 Lonetal, Lontal Shrine like shed on a fenced pasture.
74 Lonetal, Lontal A fettered man, blue delftware, a spray of seasonal forsythia and two shrine candles. A poor picture (should have waited till after nightfall) but a reminder that much of the region belonged to Bavaria (technically Wittelsbach) until 1814/5 (Congress of Vienna). Harking back: Württemberg, a lukewarm - some might say opportunistic - Rhinebund ally of Napoleon, had the better backup plan (strong family ties with the Romanovs as well as with the British throne.) Well known catch phrase at the time, it started with Campo Formio: everything and everyone has its price but sometimes you can make somebody else pay for it. Not that France herself fared too badly. The Waterloo paranoia of the time found a different outlet. The technical term is deflected.
75 Lonetal, Lontal dormer window with non functional lace curtain
76 Lonetal near Burgberg Thought at first the pile of stones at the base of the crucifix was pilgrimage related. The Lonetal is part of the Santiago de Compostella route. Tributary might be the more correct term. Double take after reading some of the votive messages: classroom project.
77 Lonetal Tripartite Jura landscape, white, blue and deciduous (non green phase).
78 Lonetal, Kaltenburg The peasant's view (look upwards from the Lonetal)
79 Lonetal, Kaltenburg Educated guess, the remains of the keep. Asymmetric arrangement. Anchoring the defenses of the castle at the side less protected by natural obstacles.
80 Lonetal, Kaltenburg Twice braced. Relieving arch on top of a normal arch. The bricklaying looks distinctly post Staufic. - In the backdrop, Burgberg.
81 Lonetal, Kaltenburg Acrusading we will go. Diemarius heeded the call and may well have passed through this very gate. It is a long way to Venice. Main sequence castle history as far as I can judge. Destroyed and rebuild at various occasions. Those fabulously rich merchant townships can be quite pesky. Everyone lost interest after the 17th century. There was apparently no building boom in the vicinity so some stones were left in place. The ruins were reportedly still marginally inhabited at the eve of the Great War.
82 Lonetal near Burgberg View of Lone valley from a limestone spur near Burgberg. Directly opposite, on the far side of the valley, the tree shrouded Kaltenburg. To the right, in a minor side valley, not visible, Hürben and the Queen Charlotte Cave. The monument less well frequented I choose, something like that. Coach parking lot. Far to the left, somewhat tugged away, the big Burgberg quarry. (A truckload by the minute. You might think that building material was still in demand.)
The silence in the upper rows of the amphitheater is impressive, particularly if you exited recently from a highway. - Just a reprieve.
83 Lonetal near Burgberg Kaltenburg, maximal zoom. - Better built Staufic towers were round. The present square ones will be replacements.
84 Miocene coastline, rest area exhibit near Geislingen A Westering sun doing the honors. Cheaper than union wage paid gaffers.
85 Miocene coastline, Lonetal Xanth ogre, unimpressed: everyone can punch Swiss Cheese holes into calcite rock.
I am not enough of a marine expert to judge to what extent the honeycombing is due to molluscs (piddock). You never know with gastropods (snails and their rasping tongues) and woodpeckers. On safer ground: spectacular tidal effects can be taken for granted. A thousand fire trucks pointing the nozzles of their water hoses any which way. Captain Ahab, where is my harpoon. ('Prendre des vessies pour des balaines', why should it have been any different in the past.) Sidonia, pensively, whatever it takes to fight the dreaded teredo. Voice from above, all in due order. First the copper-bottomed ships, than the copper shelled littoral rocks.
86 Miocene coastline, Lonetal A piece of Miocene coastline as rock garden ornament. Rock cress (lilacbush?) bibbed. Arrangements with Sedum (stonecrop) are also common. - The material should also lend itself for pool tables. It comes with plenty of side pockets. More orthodox usage: grave marker. (I did spot a few.)
