Overview
Hohle Fels (Hohler Fels, "hollow rock") opens in a limestone massif above the Ach Valley at Schelklingen, Baden-Württemberg. The cave is about 15 m high at the mouth. Excavations by Gerhard Bosinski, then Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tübingen, recovered an Aurignacian sequence that includes the Venus of Hohle Fels (2008), a female figure in mammoth ivory dated around 40,000-35,000 years ago, plus bone and ivory flutes among the oldest musical instruments.
The same layers have yielded waterfowl, horse, and lion representations. In 2026 Conard's team announced two bird figurines less than an inch long, carved in mammoth ivory, from the same horizon as earlier miniatures. He noted that one artisan (or a very small tradition) could work delicate motifs at this scale.
UNESCO inscribed "Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura" in 2017; Hohle Fels is a component. Compare Chauvet Cave for painted panels of similar age and Altamira for later Magdalenian cave art.