Alien Life Inside Ancient Cave

Late last year, it was reported that scientists had opened a cave that had been untouched for 5 million years. Romania’s Movile Cave was discovered by accident in 1986. What scientists found inside is unlike anything else on Earth. Although the cave’s air is thick with carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic to humans, life thrives there. Dozens of species, including blind spiders, translucent worms, and sulfur-eating bacteria—have evolved in absolute isolation. This makes it one of the most alien ecosystems in the world.

Movile Cave is located in southeastern Romania. Its entrance was blocked by layers of limestone and clay, which created an oxygen-starved ecosystem. The creatures inside evolved by adapting to a world of darkness, sulfuric air, and acidic pools.

Oxygen levels in the cave are 7-10 percent, which is less than half of what humans need for survival. Suffocation can happen within minutes. Nevertheless, these species have adapted to extract oxygen efficiently and to feed on bacterial mats growing on the cave’s walls and pools.

Rather than relying on photosynthesis, life in the cave depends on chemosynthesis; bacteria convert sulfur and methane gases into usable energy. Small creatures feed on the bacteria or each other.

Over 50 species discovered inside Movile Cave are not found anywhere else on the planet. Genetic studies suggest that some of these species split from their ancestors millions of years ago.

Movile Cave offers a possible glimpse of early Earth before plants rose to dominate the surface. Scientists are uncovering how ancient organisms might have survived.

Although Movile Cave’s ecosystem is called ‘alien’, it isn’t used to mean extraterrestrial. It is unfamiliar and other worldly. The survival mechanisms are unknown in typical environments. Because its food web is self-contained, it could indicate what could exist on moons like Europa and Enceladus.

Mobile Cave is so sensitive, even small disturbances could disrupt its balance. The introduction of surface microbes or changing the airflow could devastate the ecosystem. Therefore, only a few specialized researchers have access to the cave.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-open-a-cave-untouched-for-5-million-years-and-discover-alien-life-inside/ss-AA1QhRmq?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6956ca7648d9426898dfaf4b7eb5a94b&ei=97

Trash in a Cave

A spelunker found trash in a cave, but it was actually evidence of a lost civilization.

A professional cave explorer, on a mapping expedition in the Tlayococ cave in Mexico found a hidden chamber that contained evidence of an extinct civilization.

Yekaterina Katiya Pavlova went to a community in the Sierra de Guerrero to further map the Tlayococ cave. When Pavlova and her local guide reached the bottom of the cave, after exploring all that was already mapped, they opted to head into an unknown passage through a submerged entrance.

The passage led to a previously unseen room where two engraved shell bracelets sat atop stalagmites. They also found another bracelet, a giant snail shell, and pieces of black stone discs similar to pyrite mirrors. All of these things dated to more than 500 years ago.

When archaeologists later descended to the cave, they found more items; a bracelet fragment, a piece of burnt wood, and pieces of a total of eight stone discs (two of which were complete).

All of the bracelets were made from snail shells—probably a marine species—and were engraved with anthropomorphic symbols and figures. The engravings featured S-shaped symbols (known as xonecuilli), zigzagging lines, and circles to create human faces in profile. These designs could be meant to indicate deities.

The archaeologists estimate that the items were left in the cave between 950 and 1521 AD. At that time, the area was known to be populated by the now-extinct Tlacotepehaus ethnic group.

One archaeologist felt the items found could help with interpreting symbolic notions, cultural aspects, manufacturing, and trade of the pre-Hispanic societies in the Sierra de Guerrero.

The archaeologists also determined that the stalagmites were manipulated in pre-Hispanic times to give a more spherical finish, possibly to fit ritual needs. It is felt that the symbols and representations of characters on the bracelets may be related to pre-Hispanic cosmogony regarding creation and fertility. The sealed context helps them understand how the ancient inhabitants may have seen these caves—as portals to the underworld, or as sacred spaces connected to the Earth and the divine.

The black stone discs resemble others from nearby regions, such as El Infiernillo, as well as from distant cultures like Huasteca, Mayan states in east-central Mexico.

Historical reports say extreme cold forced the people living in the Sierra de Guerrero, which is located over 7,850 feet above sea level, to lower altitudes. Little is known about the Tlacotepheuas, other than some 16th-century historical mentions of their presence. The shell bracelets could help tell their story.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-spelunker-thought-she-found-trash-in-a-cave-it-was-actually-evidence-of-a-lost-civilization/ar-AA1FF5eD?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=a1e7bc6999b149a6a70e4275bd5155de&ei=77

Red Deer Cave People

The Red Deer Cave People appear to have been some of the most unusual humans in the past 20,000 years. They have been dated to have existed about 14,000 years ago, which is exceptionally recent in terms of human evolution. Yet, their fossils display many ‘archaic’ human features that are associated with more distant relatives in the family tree.

They might have been an ancient relic of humanity that held on until the end of the last Ice Age. Or they may have been a hybrid population, possibly related to Neanderthals and Denisovans. Or perhaps they show that Homo sapiens were extremely diverse throughout their history.

In 1989, human remains were unearthed at a cave in Yunnan, southern Chine. It became known at the Red Deer Cave because of the discovery of giant red deer fossils at the site. It is believed the human inhabitants cooked and ate the animals.

In 2012, scientists speculated whether the people in the cave represented a new human species. By studying their jaws and teeth, it was noted they had thick skulls with flat faces, broad noses, small chines, large molar teeth and prominent brow ridges, all features associated with older, long-extinct members of the human family tree.

The scientists had discovered a population of prehistoric humans whose skulls display an unusual mosaic of primitive features, like those seen in our ancestors thousands of years ago.

A 2015 study of a thigh bone discovered at Red Deer Cave suggested that individual weighed about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and shared anatomical features with early Homo erectus or Homo habilis, both of which went extinct about 1.5 million years ago.

Since the femur was dated at just 14,000 years old, this did not fit the widely accepted chronology of human evolution. This femur was part of a living person a few thousand years before Homo sapiens developed agriculture, which sparked an evolution of culture that ultimately gave rise to complex civilizations.

It suggests that primitive-looking humans might have survived until very late in our evolution. But it is just one bone. A pre-modern species may have overlapped in with modern humans on mainland East Asia, but that case needs to be built with more bone discoveries.

By 2022, advancements in ancient DNA allowed a study of Red Deer Cave hominins’ genetics. It confirmed that they were modern Homo sapiens. In fact, they had a significant genetic connection to modern East Asians and Native Americans, who descended from the same groups of people.

So the Red Deer Cave People were not as unusual as first thought, even though the small population did have features not seen in any modern population of humans. With no clear explanation why they appeared this way, it hints that humans living towards the end of the last Ice Age were more diverse than those living across the world today.

 

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/red-deer-cave-people-mysterious-humans-with-archaic-features-lived-just-14-000-years-ago/ar-AA1sjQUN?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=d22bab67fbce4483a434506da43bfd67&ei=110

Cave Dwellers

How would you feel about the prospect of living the rest of your life in a cave? There are a number of things that brought this question to my mind this week:

·         My husband has been sick since October; the only time he leaves the house is to go to another doctor's appointment. The house has windows, of course, but most of them have the blinds pulled shut. He has started to lament that he never leaves 'the cave' any more. He is too sick to do much more than sit in front of the tv most of the day, watching whatever he can find.

·         To keep him company, I sit in the evenings and watch whatever strikes his fancy that evening. Last night, we watched a documentary-type you tube episode about Martian colonists settling into Martian volcano flow tunnels, to protect them from a number of dangers that could happen on the Martian surface.

·         And finally, I recently read an article on the internet about a man in Turkey who was renovating his basement, took down a wall, and found himself at the end of a vast network of tunnels and chambers that had been carved into the rock thousands of years ago. Apparently, this vast underground village was started way back when, and was expanded over many generations. All the entrances were 'hidden' by boulders or vegetation, so you had to know how to get in. And there were stone doors in many of the tunnels that could be rolled shut to keep any invaders from getting in.

Personally, I find caves rather spooky, especially the dark parts. Even in the lit areas, it can be difficult to both watch your head so you don't plow into a section of low ceiling, and your feet, so you don't turn an ankle or lose your balance on the uneven floor. I also have this never-ending dread that the top of the mountain will fall in on me. I don't find them terribly comfortable places to be.

However, if I were a Martian colonist, I think I would prefer living in a cave in order to avoid:

·         Being fried by solar radiation.

·         Being frozen by the surface temperature.

·         Being exploded by lack of air pressure.

·         Being shredded by a dust storm.

·         Being hit by a crashing meteor.

Suddenly, living in a cave seems vastly preferable. Plus, the way the you tube episode showed it, the tunnel habitats would still be a collection of domes and fat, sausage-like tubes connected by a network of smaller tubes to enable people to get from one place to another. Even in the Martian tunnels, our habitats would need to be air-tight. There could be crop fields and parks, and your living quarters would look more like an apartment than a cave. I can imagine a 'native-born' Martian could spend their entire life inside the habitat, and never have to don a space suit to go out into the tunnel. Or to the surface of the planet, for that matter.

It definitely gives me food for thought. In case I ever decide to write a story about a Martian colony. Again. Because I wasn't thinking about building habitats in volcanic tunnels when I wrote my last story about colonizing Mars.

What do you think? Would you be up to living in a cave on Mars?

 

The Castle Cave

Castles can be scary and/or awe-inspiring. Caves can be scary and/or awe-inspiring. So, what do you suppose you get when you combine the two? You get the Predjama Castle of Slovenia.

Predjama Castle is a renaissance-style castle built with a cave mouth in South-central Slovenia, an area historically known as Inner Carniola.

About 1274, the Patriarch of Aquileia built the first castle at this location, using the Gothic style. At that time, it was known by the German name of Luegg Castle. It was made difficult to access by building it under a natural rocky arch set high in the stone wall below the cave. It was later acquired and expanded by the Luegg noble family, also known as the Knights of Adelsberg.

Sir Erasmus of Lueg became lord of the castle in the 15th century. He was the son of the imperial governor, and according to legend, he killed the commander of the imperial army, who had offended the memory of a deceased friend of Erasmus. Lueg fled the wrath of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, returning to the family fortress at Predjama, where he began to attack estates and villages in the area. Thus he became a robber baron.

The emperor ordered Erasmus be captured or killed, but for a long time, the best that could be accomplished was to lay siege to the castle. Surprisingly, that didn’t seem to keep Sir Erasmus from continuing his attacks. It turned out that there was a vertical shaft through the cave roof. Erasmus ordered it enlarged, and that was not a means to allow him to continue robbing his neighbors, but also allowed him to smuggle food into his besieged castle. Eventually, however, he was killed.

Apparently, the seige saw the destruction of the original castle. The Oberburg family acquired the ruins. A second castle was built by the Purgstall family early in the 16th century, only to be destroyed in an earthquake in 1511.

Better luck next time? It would seem so. In 1570, the current castle was built in the Renaissance style and hugging the vertical cliff. In pictures, you can see the top of the cave mouth hanging just above the tower tops, looking like some huge monster trying vainly to open up enough to swallow it whole.

In the 18th century, it was known as a favorite summer residence of the Cobenzl family. I have to wonder about people who enjoy spending their time in a huge castle precariously protruding from the mouth of a cave. Perhaps they were not gifted/cursed with my level of imagination.

At the end of World War II, the castle was confiscated, nationalized, and turned into a museum.

Have you seen it? Predjama Castle was the castle featured in the 1986 movie Armour of God, starring Jackie Chan. It was also the filming location of Laibach’s Sympathy for the Devil cover’s music video. AND the “Castle” map from the 2014 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive DLC, Operation Breakout, is based on Predjama Castle. So, you might have.

There are lots of pieces of the story of Predjama Castle that would lend themselves to a story. I’ll just add them to the ‘pot’ I have brewing in the back of my mind and see where they gravitate to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predjama_Castle