Caves aren’t just for bats and ancient bones anymore. Although many caves have incredible natural beauty and rich histories, some also have cool things that you’d never expect to find there.

10Mountain Biking

Mega Cavern Bike Park in Louisville, Kentucky, is home to the world’s first underground mountain biking course—and the largest indoor bike park ever built—with something for bikers at all levels. Even expert bikers will be able to maneuver through advanced trails and jumps in caverns with 30-meter-high (90 ft) ceilings. “Think about riding or skiing down a mountain,” says co-owner Jim Lowry, describing the trails. “You don’t go speeding straight down, you go back and forth, over bumps and smooth sections. You are moving fast at some points and more slowly at others.”

Designed by Joe Prisel, a bike park creator for the ESPN X Games, Mega Cavern Bike Park is built in a modular fashion. That way, a lot of the trails can be modified during the year to create new challenges for riders. With a consistent temperature of 16 degrees Celsius (60 °F) underground, bikers no longer have to worry about weather that makes riding dangerous outdoors. There will be a riding school, too.

The 92-acre cavern also sports a business park and entertainment attractions like the Lights Under Louisville, a drive-through display of over two million Christmas lights. The cavern runs under the Louisville Zoo and some commercial buildings. But the way the texture of the high limestone walls and dirt varies, it feels like you’re outside instead of enclosed beneath the ground.

There’s so much solid limestone above the ceilings that the cavern was considered safe enough to use as a fallout shelter for up to 50,000 people during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Initially excavated in the 1930s, this man-made cavern, the largest in Kentucky, was mined as a limestone quarry for over 40 years. Under new ownership in 1989, the cavern eventually housed a recycling center and over 11 acres of office buildings. It became a huge complex almost completely hidden within massive limestone cliffs.

9A Nightclub

A part of Hotel Las Cuevas in Trinidad, Cuba, Disco Ayala lets you experience a rave in a cave. With three bars and five dance floors, the club blasts disco-salsa music from a DJ booth while colored lights play off the stalactites on the walls. Although some of disco’s intense heat is released through a big hole in the roof, the opening really serves to prevent the sound waves from causing a cave-in. Up to 5,000 people can fit inside. The disco also features live acts that include acrobatics, glass-eating, fire-walking, and snakes.

Legend has it that the cave was once home to a notorious Cuban serial killer, psychopath Carlos “Coco” Ayala, who kidnapped children and killed them in the cave. When Cuban children misbehave, their mothers often warn them: “Be good or Carlos Ayala will come looking!” Supposedly, Carlos deserted during the 19th-century Cuban War of Independence and hid for safety in the cave. “I always heard that this man [abducted] children, leading [them] to a cave to rape and kill them as part of a ritual to the saints,” recalled an old resident of Trinidad as quoted by Cuban newspaper Escambray. “His misdeeds ended when the people captured and beheaded him.” Exactly how much truth exists in the legend is unknown. But there is historical evidence to confirm that Ayala did kill several people in the cave in the late 1800s.

Strangely, the owners of the nightclub kept the Ayala name. However, the disco was constructed for entertainment only, not to remember the evil deeds of a murderer.

8A Church

Although we don’t know its date of origin, the spacious Spassky Cave Church is located in Kostomarovo, a Russian village in the Voronezh region of the country. It’s the larger of two churches in the ancient cave monastery called the Svyato–Spassky Convent. Although the Spassky Church is carved into a chalky cliff, it’s big enough to accommodate 2,000 people. There’s even a large “Cave of Repentance” for sinners to make their confessions. Much of the surrounding area is named after the Holy Land, including a Calvary, a Gethsemane Garden, a hill of Golgotha, and a Mount Tabor.

Before the rise of Christianity in Russia, monks hid in ascetic cave cells in the region to avoid religious persecution until the first monastery was constructed in the 12th century. One of the purposes of the monastery was to shield parishioners from enemy attack, even if the siege continued for a long time. Monks and hermits lived in small cells cut into the shrine walls. They were completely isolated from the outside world except for a tiny window carved out of the rock.

As the communists swept into power, the monks were executed, and the Svyato-Spassky Convent was closed like so many other places of worship in the country. However, the caves once again provided refuge, this time for the country’s soldiers, when the Soviets fought the Nazis in World War II (also called the “Great Patriotic War” in the Soviet Union). Although the churches were officially reopened in 1943, Nikita Khrushchev directed local officials to close them again in the early 1960s. They flooded the cave and burned the exterior of the buildings.

In 1993, after the fall of communism, the church, convent, and caves were rebuilt. Even today, some Russians make a pilgrimage to the church every year.

7A Whole New Ecosystem

The Er Wang Dong cave in the Chongquig province of China is so big and isolated that it has a unique ecosystem, including its own weather. Scientists didn’t venture far enough into the cave to discover its secrets until 2012. Partly, that’s because they needed a lot of specialized equipment to lower themselves through the opening at the top of the cave, which requires a descent of more than 250 meters (820 ft). When the explorers got inside, they also found some openings to the outside around the floor of the cave. However, the scientists were less astounded by the almost 13-acre size of the cave than by the clouds that obscured their view of the ceiling in what is known as Cloud Ladder Hall.

Clouds get in, but they can’t get back out. Although the cave had been mined for nitrate near its entrances, there was lush vegetation, including trees, in the interior chambers. But there was also danger from rushing rivers that can carry you over one of the interior waterfalls to your death.

Explorer Robbie Shone explains that we really know very little about the mysteries of our planet’s caves. “More people have been to the Moon than to some of these caves,” he says. “Each time we go into these caves and bring photographs or video back to the surface, it’s all new stuff we’ve never seen before.”

6Modern Cavemen And Cavewomen

Over 30 million people in China still live in caves, including an entire community in Shaanxi province. There, the porous soil of the loess plateau makes it easy to dig a cave home, called a yaodong, out of the mountainside. These no-frill, one-room dwellings substitute rice paper or a quilt for a front door. If you have the money, it’s possible to buy more rooms, as well as electricity, running water, and a yard. These caves conserve energy and provide residents with more land to farm.

Some of the caves are in high demand from people looking to buy or rent. But apparently, nobody wants to leave. Most cave dwellers have lived there all their lives. Even some of the residents who’ve moved on for various reasons dream of returning to their caves. “It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter,” says forty-something Ren Shouhua. “It’s quiet and safe. When I get old, I’d like to go back to my roots.”

Historically, that wasn’t always safe, though. On January 23, 1556, the Shaanxi magnitude 8 earthquake struck, and it was the deadliest one ever recorded. The quake killed 830,000 people, and many lost their lives when their yaodong collapsed on them.

Nevertheless, the caves have provided refuge for the Chinese during important moments in history. Mao Zedong once retreated to caves in the north of Shaanxi province when the Long March ended in the 1930s. American journalist Edgar Snow wrote about a Red Army university located in bombproof caves. During the Cultural Revolution, even Chinese President Xi Jinping spent seven years living in exile in a Shaanxi province cave.

However, not all modern caves are inexpensive or spartan. The deluxe Cave House in Bisbee, Arizona, was listed for sale for over $1 million dollars in 2012 when one of the owners died. It’s even possible to find a cave home on eBay as Curt Sleeper did in 2003 in Festus, Missouri. But he soon learned it’s difficult to get a bank to finance the purchase of a cave. The Sleepers moved in, but they fell on hard times and had to put the house up for auction.

5Medical Treatment Centers

When two middle-aged Frenchwomen became convinced that electromagnetic radiation from the modern world was making them sick, they took up residence in a cave. “I’ve been treated like a crazy woman,” said one of the pair, Bernadette Touloumond. “I’ve lost a lot of friends, and my family find [sic] it hard to understand.” However, many people trek to medical treatment centers set up in caves throughout the world to supposedly help them with their ailments. We’ve already talked about the Gastein Healing Cave in Austria that contains the world’s biggest pain management center.

Especially popular these days are salt caves, some natural and some man-made, designed to treat respiratory ailments like asthma and skin conditions like eczema. The man-made caves are often just indoor rooms that coat their ceilings and walls with salt, although some blow particles of cave salt into the air with a generator. In these halotherapy chambers, you simply relax in a chair and breathe the salt air. However, doctors caution that conditions such as asthma may be worsened by these treatments.

A German named Dr. Schutz is credited with dreaming up the notion of a salt cure gallery in Berchtesgaden, Germany, after noticing how the air around a Polish salt mine healed wounds faster during World War II. In Eastern Europe, salt caves are considered by many to be therapeutic. However, there are few studies on salt rooms published in the English language to either confirm or deny these claims.

4A Controversial Movie Set

Devetashka Cave is a huge cave close to the village of Devetaki in Bulgaria. In the 1950s, the cave was used as a military warehouse for oil tank storage. Devetashka was also inhabited by humans in ancient times, but the landmark is only home to a protected bat population, including some endangered species.

In 2011, the cave became most well known for a controversy over a movie set. The producers for The Expendables 2 (starring Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis) shot an action scene where Stallone crash-landed a plane into the cave to take out Jean Claude Van Damme’s hideout. Environmentalists complained that the movie shoot reduced the bat population by about 75 percent. “The shooting harms the bat habitat—with the placement of props, the cutting down of vegetation, as well as disturbance by the presence of large numbers of people and the noise they make,” said Bulgarian zoologist Nikolay Simov from the Center for Bat Studies and Protection. Supposedly, all the noise caused the bats to come out of hibernation too early, to the detriment of their health.

Simov also stated that local authorities had no legal right to issue a permit for filming at the cave because regulations allow only scientific research and tourism there. After an investigation, however, the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Waters found that most of the bats were hibernating at the proper time and the number of dead bats wasn’t excessive.

3Astronomical Knowledge & A Fertility Light Show

A cave on Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, has revealed that its aboriginal inhabitants had an impressive knowledge of astronomy. It appears that the cave was originally used as a temple. But the way that equinoxes and solstices are marked inside the cave suggests an advanced knowledge of astronomy.

The temple also creates a unique fertility light show throughout the year. “It’s like a projector of images from a vanished culture,” says archaeologist Julio Cuenca. That culture is the aboriginal Guanches, who are believed to have come to the Canary Islands about 3,000 years ago. After Spain conquered them in the 1400s, their culture disappeared.

But apparently, their fertility myths are illuminated in the cave, revealing images that change according to the season. For the six months from March to September, sunlight shining onto the cave walls produces phallic images on top of engravings of female pubic areas. Over time, as fall approaches, these images transform into a pregnant woman and ultimately a seed.

2An Amusement Park

While technically not a cave, the Wieliczka Salt Mine outside of Krakow, Poland, doesn’t qualify as a mine anymore, either. No salt has been mined there for over a decade. Approximately 300 kilometers (186 mi) long, it’s a huge complex nine levels deep with chapels and important sculptures of religious and historical figures. From the 13th century on, generations of mostly Catholic miners built incredible structures beneath the ground, including a huge cathedral. Wieliczka even has an underground lake and chandeliers made of salt. Like the salt caves already mentioned, Wieliczka has a spa for people with respiratory difficulties. The complex became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

Thrill seekers congregate in its depths 300 meters (1,000 ft) underground to bungee jump, ride hot-air balloons, and even windsurf across the salty underground lake (although they need a giant fan to provide the wind). Wieliczka also has its own underground brass band to provide music during the festivities.

1Hidden Treasure

In March 2015, a 21-year-old member of the Israeli Caving Club discovered buried treasure in an undisclosed cave in northern Israel. Authorities don’t want to identify the location of the ancient stalactite cave for fear that poachers will rob it of other hidden treasures.

In the cave with his father and a friend, Hen Zakai was crawling along a particularly narrow area when he spotted something shining in the darkness of a nook. It was two silver coins minted during the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered Israel in the late fourth century BC. Each coin showed an image of Alexander the Great on one side and Zeus on the other. Hen also discovered a cloth pouch with silver jewelry nearby, with some earrings that were incredibly well preserved along with bracelets and rings.

“The valuables might have been hidden in the cave by local residents who fled there during the period of governmental unrest stemming from the death of Alexander, a time when the Wars of the Diadochi broke out in Israel between Alexander’s heirs following his death,” said Dr. Eitan Klein of the Antiquities Authority. “Presumably, the cache was hidden in the hope of better days, but today we know that whoever buried the treasure never returned to collect it.”

Further exploration of the cave revealed ancient pottery hanging on stalagmites. Some of the pottery had fused with the limestone and couldn’t be removed. The newly discovered artifacts date from the Hellenistic period about 2,300 years ago all the way back to the Chalcolithic period about 6,000 years ago.

Caves have served as homes, storage sites, and sacred spaces throughout history. This makes them rich and rewarding hunting grounds for archaeologists. Far from yielding just the occasional odd fossil, caves hold tough-to-crack ancient mysteries, reveal unknown behaviors from the hominid clan, and are sometimes home to the rarest and oldest artifacts. Even legends are found in them.

10 The Rhino Cave Ritual

A cave in Botswana has yielded intriguing artifacts that could have been used in the world’s oldest ritual. First examined in the 1990s, Rhino Cave produced over 100 spearheads in bright colors. Also inside was a python carved from rock. The stone reptile measures 6 meters (20 ft) by 2 meters (6.5 ft) and rests on a crushed wall. Some of the cracks in the cavern were stuffed with quartz chips.

The site clearly held great importance for the San people who used it. The weapon points were delivered, often from a great distance away, and then burned during what researchers believe was python worship practiced around 70,000 years ago, smashing the previous oldest-known rites by 30,000 years. Other scientists feel that more research is needed and even argue that there was no ritual. Yet, throughout the Tsodilo Hills, home to Rhino Cave, rock art shows the San engaged in acts resembling the ceremony. The handling of the spearheads and quartz flakes is previously unknown behavior documented for the first time in Rhino Cave.

9 The Liang Bua Teeth

A case of hobbit murder might be afoot. Ever since the diminutive hominid Homo floresiensis was documented in 2003, scientists have pondered why they swirled down the extinction drain. Now, a toothy find could clinch the case. Two human molars turned up in 2010 and 2011, respectively, in the Liang Bua cave on Flores. This is the same cave where the only known hobbit remains were excavated years before. The Homo sapiens snappers slightly postdate the hobbits’ final bow, which experts claim happened 50,000 years ago.

Humans already lived in Southeast Asia by then, making an overlap of the two species possible. They might even have interbred or competed for food—although the 1-meter-tall (3 ft) hobbits hardly qualified as opponents. Most likely, the humans obliterated their smaller cousins. There is additional evidence that the arrival of hunter-gatherers wiped out more than H. floresiensis. Several animal species also disappeared from the island around the same time.

8 Earliest Winery

The world’s oldest shoe is a perfectly preserved moccasin, despite its 5,500 years. It also led to the world’s earliest winery near the village of Areni. Returning in 2007 to the Armenian cave where the footwear was unearthed, archaeologists found equipment for producing ancient alcohol. There were dried vines, vats for trampling grapes by foot, storage containers for fermenting the juice, and tasting cups. The complete production line is over six millennia old.

The large-scale factory indicates that the grape was domesticated earlier than thought, which is not impossible, considering the location. DNA studies have traced the beginnings of winemaking back to Armenia and surrounding countries. The prehistoric winemakers left their shoes and equipment but no clue as to who they were. Apparently, they kept their dead involved. A cemetery surrounds the site, with drinking vessels around and even inside the graves.

7 Witchcraft Island

An island near Sweden is wrapped with legends of the dark arts. Removing a rock from Bla Jungfrun will guarantee lifelong bad luck, and the island is best avoided on Easter, because that’s when the witches arrive for some Devil worship.

These ancient beliefs may hold a grain of truth. You might not be cursed for life for stealing a stone or witness a holiday witch convention, but some people once took rituals seriously on Bla Jungfrun. Archaeologists visited the uninhabited island in 2014 and were astonished to find that 9,000 years ago, Stone Age ritualistic activity was rife.

People traveled there specifically to partake in these rituals, and two caves in particular were adapted for this purpose. One contains an altar-type construction to perhaps prepare religious offerings. A fireplace lies in the other, beneath a large hollow hacked from one of the walls. The entrance to this cave offers a theater view of below. Researchers speculate that, together, the blazing fire and the hollow being enlarged was an act viewed by audiences for some unknown reason.

6 Cave Of Games

The Promontory culture, forerunner to the Apache and Navajo nations, settled in a cave near Utah’s Great Salt Lake. During excavations in the 1930s and 2010s, an aspect of this mysterious people came to life in magnificent numbers: They loved gambling. Hundreds of gambling aids showed that the Promontory competed with guessing, chance, and physical prowess.

Women’s games consisted mostly of what were essentially dice matches, using split canes marked with burns and playing for low-risk wagers between them. Even so, these were social times, avidly followed by the men, who placed bets. Male games ranged from domestic recreation (such as seeing who could shoot a dart first through a moving hoop) to interactively forging bonds with other tribes.

The Promontory flourished in the late 1200s, while their neighbors faced drought and famine. Gambling while sharing feasts with their neighbors likely created better relations and prevented raids. The rich variety of Promontory games is unmatched in Western North America and could have been the key to their success as a peaceful culture.

5 Hellenistic Petra

The ancient capital of the Nabataeans has a canyon cave complex known as Little Petra, not far from the more well-known Petra. This second site served as a getaway for wealthier citizens. In the main chamber and a connecting compartment awaited a discovery that still shocks scholars since its find in 2007. Wall paintings may not sound like much, but the quality and rarity of these 2,000-year-old Hellenistic scenes shook everyone.

There are no complete artworks bearing this style, leaving almost nothing of the color and composition of the great masterpieces to study. Little Petra’s paintings could change that. Restoration took three years, but what emerged was an exceptional slice of this lost style. Exquisite realism allowed the identification of plants, birds, and insects. Children play flutes, collect fruit, and shoo birds away. The extensive range of colors were made even more luxurious with the addition of gold leaf and glazes. The wall paintings are now considered the best examples of Nabataean art and are the only figurative paintings that survive at Petra.

4 The Lupercal

The Lupercal (or Lupercale) is part of Rome’s intricate past, where legend and history often overlap. It is the city’s most sacred site, since it involves the twin brothers Romulus and Remus. Said to be the founders of Rome, the children were supposedly raised by a she-wolf in a cave known as the Lupercal. In 2007, an Italian team of archaeologists located a cavern 16 meters (52 ft) under the Palatine Hill. Part of it had already collapsed, and the fragility of the site prevented a full-scale excavation, but endoscopes and scanners revealed details about the inside of the grotto.

Decorated with marble and seashells, a round space measures 8 meters (26 ft) high, with a diameter of 7.5 meters (24 ft). The best evidence that this is the Lupercal comes from its location as well as a white eagle insignia within the vault. Emperor Augustus, who died in AD 14, is said to have restored the holy site, situated near his palace, and added such an eagle. Indeed, this grotto lies beneath the ruins of where Augustus once lived.

3 Neanderthal Builders

Neanderthal achievements aren’t bad for a hominid still viewed by many as brainless animals. They produced stone tools, glue, clothing, and jewelry, They used fire and shelters, and there’s evidence that their dead were buried with ritual. Their greatest and most mysterious act came to light in the 1990s. Cave explorers were 300 meters (984 ft) into the Bruniquel cave in France when they stumbled upon strange formations. Almost 400 stalagmites had been used as building material to construct walls. The most extraordinary are two ring-shaped walls, the biggest running 7 meters (23 ft) across and 40 centimters (16 in) high in places.

Building occurred 175,000 years ago, and Neanderthals were the only human branch that lived in Europe during that time. This unique display proves once again that they were more intelligent than is generally accepted. The walls were erected in a place of total darkness, which might explain scorch marks found on the inside, as if hearths burned within. Researchers still don’t know the exact purpose of the stalagmite structures or if building underground was something that Neanderthals normally did.

2 Buddha’s Life

In 2007, an international team archaeologists was restoring murals at a Nepalese monastery and asked the locals about ancient art in the area. The kingdom of Mustang, once a part of Tibet, has managed to keep its Tibetan and Buddhist heritage unscathed throughout history. This interested the team very much. A shepherd recalled something he’d seen as a child and led them to a cave. After scaling a 3,400-meter (11,200 ft) height to reach the site, the researchers received the treat of a lifetime.

Inside the cavern were 55 untouched paintings showing the life of Buddha. The scenes were full of color and were done by skilled artisans showing a strong Indian influence, rather than Tibetan. At the same time that the 12th- to 14th-century works were discovered, another religious treasure, ancient Tibetan manuscripts, were found in nearby caves. It’s possible that the area was a Buddhist school or retreat. The exact location of the paintings is being kept secret to prevent looters from making off with the rare collection.

1 Egypt’s Lost Fleet

Wall carvings discovered at an Egyptian temple in the 19th century showed cargo ships returning from a legendary land called Punt. In 2004, archaeologists found the missing fleet. Eight caves near the Red Sea held the remains of equipment, ships, and a harbor community. Incredibly, the vessels were built to be assembled like puzzles, something nobody had ever done before. From the harbor oasis, Mersa Gawasis, great sea voyages were launched.

When a 20-meter (66 ft) replica was made, the dubious-looking ship was essentially a giant hull without a frame and made from immensely thick wood. Sailing on the Red Sea for weeks, it performed with agility, surfed out a storm, and reached 16 kilometers per hour (10 mph). Perhaps more tantalizing than proving that ancient Egypt was a phenomenal maritime nation is the link between Mersa Gawasis and the mythical Punt. Among the artifacts were stones inscribed with factual-sounding accounts of sailing to Punt.

The harbor was abandoned after four centuries, and everything was sealed up in caves. After 4,000 years, the historic rediscovery includes some of the oldest seafaring ships.

Like it nor not, this planet is covered in a weblike network of caves, and they run deeper than you’ll ever know. For every space we construct above ground, nature has made its own below. And most aren’t filled with couches and TVs like up here.

From 19th-century mines to billion-year-old isolated caverns, cave systems are everywhere and are every type of spooky. Over the centuries, they have amassed a seriously twisted collection of forgotten and deliberately hidden items, including people, left to gather dust in the crushing silence and blackness.

This list gathers ten of those lost artifacts that have since been found, ten of the most shocking things ever found in caves.

Related: 10 Caves And Mountains Connected To UFO And Alien Activity

10 The Bone Theater

The Paris Catacombs are notorious for being one of the largest ossuaries on Earth. More than six million skeletons rest within its maze of tunnels, and the darkness doesn’t end there. The site has become both a mecca for paranormal researchers and a magnet for criminal activity. One such crime was discovered by French police in 2004, though there is zero chance they saw it coming.

Trespassers in the catacombs are common, but most take pictures and leave. In 2004, police discovered that trespassers, their number unknown, spent so much time in the catacombs that they had converted a section of it into their house. And what house would be complete without a restaurant and movie theater? The Guardian quotes the police as having found “an underground amphitheater, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs” and “an informal restaurant and bar. There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables, and chairs, a pressure cooker for making couscous.” They went to say that “the whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system, and there were at least three phone lines down there.” Certainly a shocking find in the middle of a massive, off-limits boneyard.

9 Hobbits

In 2003, a team of archaeologists working in the Liang Bua cave in Flores, Indonesia, found sets of human remains that defied explanation. The bones clearly belonged to adults, and though those adults were clearly close relatives to ourselves, Homo sapiens, they stood only around three and a half feet tall. Naturally, they were swiftly nicknamed hobbits.

The discovery shocked the scientific community, as the extinct humans were smaller than any before, even a full foot smaller than the smallest of the African Pygmies. Naturally, many anthropologists assumed the skeletons simply suffered from a disease that left them short. Still, recent studies have strongly pointed to the opposite: the hobbits, real name Homo floresiensis, were otherwise normal, healthy, upright, intelligent people. They just happened to be the size of hobbits.

8 Confusing Giant Bones

While we’re on the subject of ancient bones, another cave hit the mainstream for the opposite reason. The Panxian Dadong Cave contained a trove of impossibly giant bones. Archaeologists searching one of the Panxian Dadong caverns in southern China found bones from more than 40 ancient species of mammal, most of them massive pack animals and herbivores. The issue was that the cave was 1,600 feet above sea level, with only a sheer rock face leading to its entrance.

Among the many hundreds of bones were ancient rhinos, elephant-like Stegodons, and even the Bigfoot-lookalike Gigantopithecus. Many showed signs of human manipulation like burning and cutting, suggesting ancient humans were responsible for the stockpile. But the question remains: how did our ancestors get the animals up there, to begin with?

7 A Witch’s Ghost

Though it began as a throwaway Reddit post from a couple of anonymous hikers, the story of the “Crone of the Catskills” grew into an enduring modern mystery. In 2016, the hikers were exploring caves in New York’s Catskill Mountains range when they stumbled upon an eerie effigy. In its own alcove was a small wooden statue of a woman with a noose hanging from her neck and nails hammered into her eyes. Though one hiker protested taking it, the other brought the cursed item home.

As the original poster put it, the statue “keeps moving from its spot… (His friend) can’t sleep at night because banging keeps waking him up… someone knocked on his door, but no one was there when he opened it, and he’s super weirded out.” They donated the item to a museum for the occult, and that’s where its story really gets good…

6 A Crystallized Human Sacrifice

Actun Tunichil Muknal is a major archaeological site in Belize that has yielded many Mayan artifacts. The most (in)famous discovery ever made within its walls is hinted at by its translated name: The Cave of the Crystal Sepulcher. (No, Indiana Jones, stay away from this one.)

The cave was clearly a site for ritual sacrifice. Skeletons lay among ceremonial artifacts, decorations, and even atop their own altars, all dead by human hands. They range in age from one to around 40, some of which exhibit skull-shaping. The real prize, though, is the fully-calcified remains of a 17-year-old boy (initially thought to be female), which has come to be known as The Crystal Maiden. His vertebrae are smashed, and it’s hypothesized that he died slowly and painfully, his suffering preserved forever; calcium crystals have completely covered his bones, making him look almost like the world’s most gruesome snow sculpture.

5 A New Dead Sea Scroll and a Time Traveler

The Dead Sea Scrolls were never really discovered, as in, we haven’t found all of them yet. Instead, they are comprised of thousands of scroll fragments that continue to be discovered. Archeologists have been finding fragments since the 1940s, and as recently as this year, 2021, more were discovered in Israel’s Cave of Horror.

The cave earned its nickname in the 1960s when the bodies of 40 Jews were discovered there. Researchers concluded that Roman soldiers murdered them in the second century. Revisiting the cave in 2021, researchers found dozens of new fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, curiously buried alongside the mummified remains of a young girl from 6,000 years ago.

4 Conspiracy Rocks

Sheltered from much of the Earth’s weather and biology, caves can provide an excellent space for unusual geology to form, even if it takes millions or billions of years. Because of this, odd rocks and crystals continually turn up, some inspiring wonder and some fueling ancient aliens believers.

One example is the Wolfsegg Iron, also known as the Salzburg Cube, which was found in a mine in the 1800s. People believed it to be a meteorite, and its unusual shape led many to believe that machines had worked it before it fell to Earth. Another example is the many Klerksdorp spheres, which, although three billion years old, also look as if precision machines have cut them. In reality, both are simply the products of unusual geology.

3 Skull Cups

Gough’s Cave is a massive cave system in Somerset, England, famous for containing the Cheddar Man, the oldest complete human skeleton ever found in Great Britain. In addition, the caves hold darker remains: ancient humans, including children, whose skulls were made into drinking cups.

Multiple human bones were found with cut marks that suggest cannibalism, a surprisingly common find with bones of that age. It’s the skull cups that truly surprise people, though. Fragments from five to seven skulls have been found, smoothed into drinking cups—one as young as three when they died.

2 A Rainforest

As a brief reprieve from the darker items found in caves, consider Son Doong Cave in Vietnam, which contains the largest cave chamber in the world. The cave is so big, in fact, that inside its rock walls, it contains its own rainforest.

After Eden itself, the rainforest was nicknamed the Garden of Edam, and it’s easy to see why. The garden is no mere collection of cave moss but rather a proper rainforest. Trees grow hundreds of feet tall within the cave. A full ecosystem thrives amidst the tress, including even birds and monkeys. The garden’s discovery was a shock, coming completely by accident, but of the best kind.

1 A 100-Year-Old Ax Murderer

Joseph Henry Loveless was a career criminal. In 1916, authorities brought him to jail on the suspicion that he had murdered his wife, Agnes, with an ax. Using a small saw-blade he had hidden in his shoe, Loveless escaped from jail and was never seen again. Not alive, anyway.

Loveless’s rediscovery was grizzly and protracted. In 1979, a family discovered an unidentified torso, beheaded and left to decay in a burlap sack in Buffalo Cave, Idaho. Twelve years later, in 1991, a matching hand was found, which prompted a search that yielded both missing legs and one arm. Eighteen years after that, the body was DNA-tested, suggesting it could be the long-lost Loveless. Loveless’s own grandson, now 87 years old, then provided DNA to clarify the results.

The brutally dismembered body was none other than escaped murder-suspect Joseph Henry Loveless, finally identified 103 years after he was last seen alive. The details of his death are still unknown, but some speculate that Agnes’s family found Loveless and got their revenge.

Cave diving is insane. That may be the shortest and most subjective opening sentence in history, but it is also supported by a mountain of evidence. A gruesome, water-logged, decaying, lightless mountain of evidence, scattered and wedged into thousands of cramped, jagged chambers beneath the Earth.

Combining the isolation and desolation of cave exploring with the powerlessness and (often literal) madness that can come with scuba diving, cave diving is quite obviously a tremendous challenge. Only the bravest and most skilled adventurers attempt this most extreme of extreme sports, and even then, their success is far from guaranteed.

The list gathers ten stories from cave divers who unfortunately found themselves in the creepiest of circumstances. Whether it’s close calls with death, brushes with the paranormal, or just plain tragedy, here are ten of the creepiest tales of cave diving.

Related: 10 Fascinating Cave Finds That Will Blow Your Mind

10 The Rescue

The Tham Luang rescue is likely the most famous cave rescue operation in history. Involving thousands of rescue workers, lasting 18 days, and drawing worldwide media attention, the story of one Thai children’s soccer team trapped in a flooded cave became a tense cultural phenomenon. However, the children were not alone in their crisis, and their would-be rescue divers suffered some of the worst injuries and trauma of the whole incident.

On June 23, 2018, twelve children and their young assistant coach began exploring the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system, and soon after, a sudden torrent of rain partially flooded the cave and trapped them inside. Starting the next day, international teams of rescue divers searched the newly-underwater cave for over two weeks.

All told, over 90 divers helped rescue the boys, and their mission was a success; all thirteen were rescued alive. However, two rescue divers died due to the operation—one during the dive and one a year later from a dive-related blood infection.

9 Rummu Prison

Luckily, the creepiness of Rummu Quarry doesn’t involve any death—at least, not directly. While on the surface, the site is a simple quarry and popular tourist destination, underneath its surface lies a sad, bleak history.

The quarry was formed when the limestone mine that forms its base fell into disrepair and began flooding. While it was still a mine, any limestone pulled from its rock walls came from the ceaseless, merciless hard labor of Soviet prisoners, specifically those sentenced to the Rummu prison work camp.

Though scenic at its surface, the quarry’s base still holds the remnants of the prison, including bunkers, walls, and rusting barbed wire to symbolize its cruelty.

8 Modesto Varischetti

Admittedly, the story of Italian miner Modesto Varischetti may be more peculiar than creepy. However, there is still plenty of creeps to be had when you consider what he went through.

In 1907, Varischetti was working in a gold mine in Bonnievale, Australia, when a severe thunderstorm quickly flooded major sections of the mine. He managed to find an air pocket during the deluge and sat there in the cold, silent darkness, awaiting rescue. 

Varischetti heard no sign of rescue for five long days when a rescuer in old-timey ocean-diving gear finally managed to reach him and bring him food. Even then, it took another four days for rescuers to extract Varischetti from the flooded mine.

As strange as it is, one of the miners who aided in Varischetti’s rescue was none other than future U.S. President Herbert Hoover.

7 A Missile Silo

Developed in 1959, the Titan I was the U.S.’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. The missiles were housed in underground complexes across the Western U.S., but by the late ’60s, the missiles’ obsolescence had rendered the complexes useless. 

The sites were gutted for scrap parts and largely left abandoned. After one site flooded, the silo near Royal City, WA, a private company gained permission to host dives through the site, and they are as creepy as they are majestic.

In one section, the tour company’s official synopsis of the dive reads, “You’d never know you were about to enter a 160-foot-tall chamber that housed a ballistic nuclear missile!” That should tell you all you need to know about the type of people who volunteer for this (manmade) cave dive. Divers can even find themselves “mere inches from where the massive Titan I ICBM which once stood at the ready,” which may creep you out for several reasons.

6 Ben’s Vortex

On August 18, 2010, Ben McDaniel disappeared after diving into Vortex Spring in Florida. After two dive shop employees saw McDaniel dive into the spring early in the evening, he was never seen again.

Though McDaniel’s disappearance could easily have been a simple, if tragic, case of diving error or misfortune, many are unconvinced. During the investigation, several odd pieces of evidence came to light, which led many to question the events of McDaniels’ last night—even suspecting foul play.

For a few examples, there is McDaniels’ odd behavior before his last dive; the recovered air tanks belonging to McDaniels that were found to be inconsistent with his dive plans; McDaniel’s own personal and financial troubles leading up to the disappearance; the suspicious death of the spring’s owner the following year; and the repeated police refusals to release important evidence to the case.

5 We Have to Go Back

Pluragrotta is a popular cave diving spot in Norway due to its beauty, extreme depth, and excellent underwater visibility. In 2014, it also became famous as the site of an awful diving accident, and subsequently, an amazing recovery mission.

In February, five Finnish divers attempted a long, deep dive through the caves. Only three were successful, and even they all experienced crippling decompression sickness. Divers were then banned from the cave, and an international team of rescuers searched the cave for the two bodies. After they deemed the mission too dangerous, the three original survivors took matters into their own hands.

With a large support crew but no official clearance, the survivors undertook a daring mission back into the cave’s depths to recover their friends’ bodies. They succeeded and alerted authorities of the bodies, prepared to accept their punishment for violating the cave ban. Instead, they faced no charges, with one of them even earning a medal from the Finnish president.

The documentary “Diving into the Unknown” chronicles the whole story, which is more dramatic and harrowing than any Hollywood blockbuster.

4 The Birth Canal

The story of the death of John Edward Jones has become notorious for its heartbreaking and protracted nature. It has even been referred to as “the worst death of all time.”

On November 24, 2009, Jones and his friends began spelunking in Nutty Putty Cave when Jones decided to attempt passage through a section known as the Birth Canal. The passage is frighteningly narrow and descends vertically, meaning Jones had to wiggle his way down it headfirst. Unfortunately, the mere act of breathing made Jones’s torso too wide for the passage, and he became stuck.

The details of rescuers’ attempts to free Jones are a grim slog of dashed hopes and slow suffering. At one point, Jones was even partially raised out of the Canal by a rope and pulley system, but the machine failed and plunged him right back to his original predicament. After more than 24 hours trapped upside down and compressed, Jones eventually lost his ability to breathe and died. Shortly before his death, rescuers managed to lower a radio down to Jones, who could speak to his wife one last time.

3 Mossdale

There’s no way to write a list like this and not include the 1967 Mossdale disaster. Located in Yorkshire Dales, England, the Mossdale Caverns were a popular hiking and cave exploration destination. We say were because the 1967 deaths of six cave explorers forced the local government to prohibit any future exploration.

The cave was a notoriously hard slog through varying terrain and water levels that led four of the original ten explorers to cut their adventure short, exiting the cave to safety. Sadly, the remaining six never joined their friends, as rapid rainfall flooded sections of the cave and prevented their escape. Rescue efforts over the next two days located the six bodies, confirming their deaths and cementing the Mossdale disaster as the deadliest cave incident in British history.

2 It Was All on Tape

The cave diving death of Dave Shaw is a multilayered tragedy. Warning: the attached video shows Shaw’s personal camera footage from the moments leading up to his death, and they are unpleasant.

The tragedy began with the 1994 death of Deon Dreyer. A decade later, while on a dive at the same site, Shaw found Dreyer’s missing body. In a class act, Shaw contacted Dreyer’s parents and promised them that he would return to the site and recover their son’s body for them. 

Shaw mounted the return dive as promised and reached Dreyer’s body again. Unfortunately, though, Shaw then began suffering from nitrogen narcosis, which prevented him from breathing and thinking normally.

Dave Shaw died next to the body of Deon Dreyer. The tragedy then continued as Shaw’s support diver, Don Shirley, nearly died trying to save Shaw as well.

1 The Iceberg Shifted

Jill Heinerth is somewhat of a legend in the cave diving community. She has filmed dive documentaries for multiple major channels, has authored an impressive library of dive-related books, and—as you would expect—has dived in a staggering amount of caves across the world. It should carry a great deal of weight to hear that she cited one diving trip in particular as containing several of the scariest moments in her life.

The trip Heinerth referred to was her dive into a newly-formed, moving iceberg. The object was, as she puts it, “an iceberg the size of Jamaica” that was “the largest moving object on our planet.”

Alongside two fellow divers/documentarians, Heinerth entered the submerged chambers of rock and ice inside the iceberg and saw sights that no human had ever seen before. They also almost died. Repeatedly. One of her peers almost froze to death; all three were trapped in a cave whose entrance had suddenly slammed shut. They were whipped around by currents, trapped in an unexpected chamber of ice, became slaves to another current, and became trapped again.

On top of that, the entire iceberg proved unstable. As Heinerth writes, “There was our iceberg—the cave that we had just been inside of, breaking into pieces, heaving up in the sea and sending these giant waves towards our boat. The whole square mile of ice we’d just been inside of was breaking apart and dissolving into the sea. I was just standing there, gobsmacked on the ship’s rail. I realized that if we had been in the water, we’d be dead.”

The caves of the world contain some of the best ancient works of art ever created. Not all of them may be as spectacular as those of Altamira in Spain, which notably triggered Picasso to say that anything “after Altamira is only decadence.” They all do, however, offer understanding into the way our ancient ancestors thought, even though the works of art were created tens of thousands of years ago.

Worldwide, these ancient artworks also continue to be of particular significance to indigenous communities, who see them as an integral part of their spiritual and cultural heritage. It has also emerged as an essential source of cultural tourism and constitutes a crucial economic revenue in several countries around the globe. As we’ve looked at the oldest sculptures in the World recently, we now turn our attention to a list of the oldest cave paintings in the world.

10 Apollo 11 Cave—Namibia
(25,500–27,500 Years Old)

The Apollo 11 Cave lies about 160 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of the town of Keetmanshoop in southwestern Namibia. The surrounding region and, quite possibly, the cave was originally named “Goachanas” by the Nama people. However, the German archaeologist Wolfgang Erich Wendt was actively excavating inside the cave on July 24, 1969, when he learned of Apollo 11’s team’s safe return to Earth. He renamed the cave to celebrate the occasion.

The cave housed several of the oldest portable artworks in southern Africa, carbon-dated between 27,500 and 25,500 years old. The slabs of art discovered within the cave are commonly referred to as the Apollo 11 stones. In total, seven grey and brown quartzite slabs have been unearthed in the cave. Apart from the Apollo stones, the cave also contained numerous red and white paintings, which ranged from basic geometric shapes and patterns to images of bees, which can be a nuisance to unwary travelers to this day. Ancient artworks were also discovered in the form of engravings on the banks of a nearby river and on a massive limestone boulder a few feet from the cave’s entrance.^[1]

9 Nawarla Gabarnmang—Australia
(28,000 Years Old)

In 2006, Ray Whear, the Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation’s Cultural and Environmental Manager, observed the shadow of an unusually high rock shelter while doing a periodic aerial survey of the Arnhem Land Plateau in Australia. Whear asked the pilot to land the helicopter to take a closer look. After walking the short distance up to the rock shelter, the two men were amazed to find themselves inside a spectacular ancient gallery featuring more than 1,000 paintings.

The massive rock shelter lies on the territory belonging to the Buyhmi clan. A highly respected Aboriginal elder named Bardayal “Lofty” Nadjamerrek from Arnhem Land titled the site Nawarla Gabarnmang, which means “place of hole in the rock” in the Jawoyn language. The artworks have been mapped and carbon-dated since 2006 and have been confirmed to be the oldest ever to be discovered in Australia. Hundreds of vividly intertwined human, animal, fish, and dreamlike figures are on the shelter’s roof and pillars, all painted in radiant red, orange, white, and black pigments, portraying generation after generation of artworks comprising millennia.^[2]

8 Coliboaia Cave—Romania
(32,000 Years Old)

In 2009, a team of French researchers and Romanian spelunkers discovered 32,000-year-old art in the Coliboaia cave. The subsequent studies and research have advanced the idea that prehistoric cultures across Europe shared a common artistic culture that may or may not have been linked. Prior to the discovery, Romania had only one site with prehistoric cave art, Cuciulat Cave, which showcased only two animal drawings. The remaining instances of cave paintings in the Far East are in Russia’s Ural Mountains, but neither is older than 14,000 years.

The Coliboaia Cave was actually discovered around the early 1980s, but its initial explorers did not find any prehistoric paintings. In fact, the cave is quite challenging to explore since many of its galleries are permanently flooded by an underground river. However, in 2009, spelunkers from several Romanian spelunking clubs decided to explore Coliboaia utilizing diving equipment and finally located the incredible cave art. Many of the paintings can only be seen by drifting in the water and sticking one’s head above the surface. Upward of half a dozen images were discovered, including a horse, two bear heads, a bison, and two rhinoceros heads, almost 100% similar to the imagery discovered to date in Western European caves.^[3]

7 Chauvet Cave—France
(30,000 to 35,000 Years Old)

The first documented figurative cave art in Europe dates back more than 30,000 years and can be found in Chauvet Cave in France. While many scientists believe that the artworks are too sophisticated for this period, over 80 radiocarbon dates were collected by 2011, with tests conducted on everything from torch tracks to paintings, bone fragments, and charcoal recovered from the cave floor. The radiocarbon records from the collected samples indicate two creation phases in Chauvet. The first was around 35,000 years ago, and the second was 30,000 years ago. Another surprising finding was that some of the artworks were continuously revised over thousands of years, which explained the superior quality of some earlier paintings.

The highly diverse and significant number of animals that crisscross the internal spaces of the cave —both engraved and painted—are of such an elevated aesthetic beauty and high quality that archaeologists initially believed them to be considerably younger and in line with the prior art in caves such as that of the Lascaux Cave. Its incredible artistry and age have made us rethink the history of art and the abilities and skills of these prehistoric people. The cave was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2014.^[4]

6 Kapova Cave—Bashkortostan, Russia
(36,000 Years Old)

Alexander Ryumin, a senior researcher at the Bashkir State Nature Reserve, made a titillating discovery in January 1959. He identified drawings of ancient humans on the walls of the Kapova (Shulgantash) cave. Ryumin, who had actually gone into the cave looking for bats, discovered brightly colored works of art depicting various animals, including rhinos, horses, and mammoths. The discovery became a real-world sensation. In the scientific community, the prevailing belief during the 1950s was that drawings of animals from the Paleolithic era were a hallmark of prehistoric art uncovered in Western Europe and could only be found in France and Spain. Since its discovery, the Kapova cave has become a crucial cultural and historical complex that remains unrivaled throughout Eastern Europe.

The most intricate composition was discovered on the eastern wall. At the center of the panel, one can find the image of an animal now fondly called “Ryumin’s horse” because this was the first image to be identified in the cave. Following the horse is a long trail of animals, including several mammoths and a rhinoceros. Every animal seems to be strolling from right to left, with a tiny mammoth trying to stand or heading in another direction. The opposite wall sports a bison or bull and several mammoths with a calf. One can also see an image of a trapezium with peculiar lines and other geometric patterns repeated throughout the various panels in the cave.^[5]

5 Caves in the District of Maros—Indonesia
(39,900 Years Old)

The caves in Sulawesi’s Maros district in Indonesia are renowned for the thousands of handprints on their walls. In 2014, a study based on uranium-thorium dating placed the handprints at a minimum age of 39,900 years. Another recent discovery of a babirusa painting within the caves was also dated to at least 35,000 BC, firmly placing it among some of the oldest figurative representations discovered worldwide.

The discovery of prehistoric art on the island of Sulawesi significantly extends the geographical placement of the world’s first cave artists, who were long believed to have emerged in prehistoric Europe. Big and dangerous mammals are predominantly depicted in Europe and Sulawesi’s prehistoric cave art, leading archeologists to believe that they played a significant role in these people’s belief systems. The findings from the Maros cave sites further raise the likelihood that these types of artworks predate the migration of modern humans from Africa 60,000 years ago, leading many archeologists to believe that even older examples of cave art will eventually be found in mainland Asia and Africa.^[6]

4 Cave of El Castillo—Spain
(40,000 Years Old)

Hermilio Alcalde del Río, a Spanish archaeologist, was one of the pioneers in researching and studying the earliest cave art in Cantabria. It was no surprise that he discovered El Castillo’s Cave in 1903. The entrance to the cave was initially relatively narrow but was later widened as a consequence of the numerous archaeological excavations within the cave system. Alcalde del Río discovered a lengthy series of paintings, extensive markings, and ancient graffiti created in charcoal and red ochre on the ceilings and walls of several caverns from the Lower Paleolithic Era to the Bronze Age. More than 150 artworks have already been cataloged, including those highlighting deer engravings—complete with partial shading.

According to recent studies, Neanderthals created the oldest works of art in the cave, although most of the later works were made by Homo sapiens. The studies concluded that Stone Age artists painted red disks, club-like symbols, geometric patterns, and handprints on European cave walls long before popular thought, in some instances upward of 40,000 years ago. The research results seem to point to a string of recent discoveries: significant fossil evidence that Homo sapiens lived in England 41,500 to 44,200 years ago, in Italy from 43,000 to 45,000 years ago, and that musical instruments were being made in German caves around 42,000 years ago. Scientists are also uncovering new genetic evidence of Neanderthal-Homo sapien interbreeding, revealing much closer relationships than generally believed.^[7]

3 Lubang Jeriji Saléh Cave—East Kalimantan, Borneo (40,000 Years Old)

A spotty, worn-down artwork of a beast painted on the wall of a cave system in Borneo may well be one of the oldest discovered instances of figurative rock art in the world. Fractured and faded, the reddish image depicts a healthy-looking but thin-legged mammal, possibly a species of cattle that can still be found living on the island, with a streak of ochre resembling a spear dangling from its side. The animal is just one of a trio of large animals adorning a wall in the Lubang Jeriji Saleh cave in the Kalimantan province of Borneo in Indonesia. Thousands of paintings have been discovered in limestone caves in the region and have been analyzed and studied since their discovery in 1994 by the French explorer Luc-Henri Fage.

Around and between the three large mammals are hundreds of hand stencils, the tell-tale cave art calling cards of our prehistoric ancestors. The faded markings, which show up spectacularly on their own or in groups, were created by spraying ochre paint via the mouth over a hand pressed against the rock. Scientists have determined the paintings’ ages by dating the calcite crusts that sometimes border the walls of the caves. These crusts are formed when rainwater manages to creep into the caves. Those below the artwork give scientists a maximum age for the painting, and those at the highest point provide the minimum age.^[8]

2 Caves in the District of Maros… Again—Indonesia (43,900 Years Old)

As if one appearance on the list wasn’t enough, the caves in the Maros-Pangkep karst of South Sulawesi, Indonesia—specifically the cave known as Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4—was recently found to have a painting that is over 43,900 years old. This prehistoric artwork on the island of Sulawesi, confirmed to be the world’s oldest figurative work of art, depicts part-animal, part-human figures hunting wild boars and comparatively tiny bison-like mammals with ropes and spears. The representation of part-animal, part-human hunters is believed to be the earliest evidence of our ability to perceive things that do not usually exist in the natural world. This capacity is the foundation of religious thought—the origins of which have been shrouded in mystery for thousands of years.

Apart from the exceptional age of this artwork, it’s the first example of cave art with a detailed and thorough narrative or “story” of such great age. The conventional opinion has always been that humanity’s first rock art was mere geometric symbols, which progressed into the exquisite figurative artworks found in France and Spain around 35,000 years ago. From this perspective, the first storylines and human-animal hybrids (known as therianthropes) only came into being much later. But the artworks inside Leang Bulu’s Sipong 4 now show that the main elements of sophisticated artistic culture were already prevalent in Sulawesi 44,000 years ago—therianthropes, figurative art, and scenes.^[9]

1 Maltravieso Cave—Cáceres, Spain
(64,000 Years Old)

The world’s oldest confirmed cave painting is a beautiful red hand stencil that was discovered in the cave of Maltravieso in Cáceres, Spain, along with two nearby caves: La Pasiega and Ardales. Its age alone might have been impressive, but a new study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Southampton decisively concluded that the artworks discovered in three separate caves in Spain were painted over 64,000 years ago. This is a solid 20,000 years before our modern human ancestors arrived in Europe. Their research confirms that the Palaeolithic (Ice Age) cave paintings—which include paintings of mammals, as well as geometric designs and dots, were made by Europe’s only inhabitants at the time—the Neanderthals.

The research demonstrated how the international team of researchers used a highly developed method called uranium-thorium dating to confirm the age of artworks to over 64,000 years. All three caves contain black and red ochre paintings of groups of mammals, dots, patterns, and engravings, hand stencils, and handprints. From their findings, the researchers have also confirmed that the creation of the paintings and other artwork must have involved such highly developed behavior as location selection, pigment mixing, and even light source planning. ^[10]