House

History

The house provided a short-term shelter for the oldest Neolithic inhabitants of eastern Slovakia, who were the creators of the culture with eastern linear ceramics - its local offshoot, the so-called Gemer linear ceramics. However, it was mainly inhabited by Neolithic people with the Bukovo Mountains culture. Later, the original underground entrance was closed by rubble and the cave became inaccessible.

The Stará Domica cave was known a long time ago. In 1926, from its bottom, J. Majko penetrated through the chasm into the vast underground spaces of the Domice, in which a number of different archaeological finds were found. Wheel pits of residential buildings and fireplaces were found in several places. A number of reconstructed potsherds, as well as a terraced excavated slope of fine clay on the banks of the Styx with traces of stone tool impressions, testify to the production of ceramics. Trowels, awls, arrows, a comb, a ring, a decorated cylindrical hoop and a rod represent the pinnacle of Neolithic bone processing. Pendants made of shells and animal teeth have also been preserved. Stone tools include polished axes, wedges and hammers with a drilled hole, as well as chipped stone tools - knives and scrapers. Evidence of the production of fabrics is the finding of an imprint of a coarse fabric in the clay, clay whorls and a fragment of a conical weaver's weight. The back parts of the cave were probably sacred and cultic places where the charcoal drawings were preserved. The house is one of the most important sites of the Bukovo Mountains culture in Slovakia.

In 1930, the Czechoslovak Tourists' Club opened the lower entrance and in 1932 made the cave accessible, including electric lighting and the Styx dam for underground navigation. The accessible parts of the cave measure 1315 m, of which 140 m are accessible.

Only occasional underground streams flow through the cave. It has been catastrophically flooded several times in the past during intense storms. Therefore, it is necessary to direct agricultural activity in its vicinity in order to prevent accelerated water runoff and soil erosion.

The most western part of the cave system, not far from the peripheral sinkholes, is the Devil's Hole cave. From the entrance, the underground spaces descend to the underground river Styx. The stick-shaped stalagmites from the sinter filling are particularly eye-catching. The easily accessible entrance parts of the cave have been known for a long time. L. Bartolomeides wrote about the cave as early as 1801. The supposed connection of Domice with the Devil's Hole was made by J. Majko in 1929.

It was created in the Mesozoic Middle Triassic light Wetterstein limestones of the Silician mantle along tectonic faults by the corrosive and erosive activity of the underground streams of the Styx, the Domický Potok and smaller tributaries, which mainly drain the water flowing from the non-karst part of the cave basin. Horizontal oval corridors with ceiling troughs dominate. Corridors are sometimes enlarged into domes and halls. The Styx corridor takes on the character of an underground canyon with meanders. The three development levels are in a relative reduction of 8 to 12 m. The lowest level is covered with gravel and clay.

The house is connected to the Čertova diera cave - together they reach a length of 5368 m. They form a single genetic unit with the Baradla cave in the Republic of Hungary with a total length of about 25 km, less than 1/4 of which is on the territory of the Slovak Republic.

From the rich sinter filling, shields and drums, cascading lakes (Roman baths, Plitvice Lakes), onion-shaped stalactites and pagoda-shaped stalagmites are typical for the Domica cave. The air temperature in the cave is 10.2 to 11.4 °C, relative humidity 95 to 98%.

Bones of a cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) were excavated in the Dry Corridor. So far, 16 species of bats have been found in the Domica and Čertova diera caves. The dominant species is the southern horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus euryale), which forms a 1,000- to 2,000-member colony, the only one of its kind in Slovakia. In some places there are thick layers of bat excrement - guano. Its chemical action on sinter formations gave rise to guano pots. Among the small invertebrates, 44 species of tadpoles were found (the most important of which is the endemic Arrhopalites slovacicus), the rare shrew Eukoenenia spelaea, the millipede of the genus Typhloiulus sp., the crustacean Niphargus tatrensis and many other species of terrestrial and aquatic fauna.