Balla Cave

Balla Cave is one of the specially protected caves of Hungary. Its distinction is that it was the first place in Hungary where human remains from the Stone Age were discovered. It is located in the Bükki National Park.

Description

The inactive spring cave is visible from a distance, its huge horizontal main entrance opens on the slope of Balla Hill, 400 metres in a straight line southeast from the centre of Répáshuta, at an altitude of 565 metres above sea level. It has four entrances. A board presenting the cave and its finds stands 53 metres above the valley. The inactive spring cave formed in Triassic limestone. A hall 54 metres long, on average six metres high and 8–10 metres wide constitutes it. It is freely visitable, a lamp is required for viewing.

In 1911 the cave was first called Balla Cave in the literature. In the literature the cave also appears under the names Balla cave (Polgárdy 1941), Ballabérci 1. cave and Balla-bérci Balla-cave (Hevesi 2002).

Research history

The exploration of the cave was started in 1909 by Jenő Hillebrand, and already during the excavation of the trial pit he found the famous child bones, which were examined by Mihály Lenhossék. The following year Jenő Hillebrand, Ottokár Kadić and Tivadar Kormos investigated the cave. In 1911 Jenő Hillebrand continued the work with Tivadar Kormos, which was completed in 1913. From the upper two Holocene layers, Neolithic and Bronze Age material was recovered. The yellow loess layer beneath contains animal bone material that most closely resembles the fauna of the late Pleistocene Pilisszántó stage. Cave bear, cave hyena and aurochs bones were also found there.

The age of the approximately one-and-a-half-year-old child skeleton found in the upper part of the layer is now doubtful. It is not excluded that it belongs to the Neolithic. The peculiarity of the skeleton, despite its location near the surface, is its archaic character, the extremely long and thick-walled skull, the prognathic face, the weakly developed occipital protuberance and the barely perceptible thorn-like projection on the inner side of the mandible. These are all characteristics of ancient forms. In the deeper layers, tools of the early Szeleta culture and the Bábony culture were found. The results of the investigation of the peat collected from a depth of 1.7 metres are known from the estate of Ferenc Hollendon. The peat consists of remnants of maple, ash, linden, oak and hazel.

In the study published in the 1926 Esztergom Yearbook there is mention that the child skeleton from Balla Cave (Répáshuta, Borsod County), which belongs to the Aurignacian type, was excavated by Jenő Hillebrand in 1909 from the diluvial layer. In the book published in 1932, *The Aggtelek Karst Cave and Its Surroundings*, in the section about the caves of the Bükk Mountains, it is stated that Balla Cave is located on the slope of Balla Hill at the border of Répáshuta. Many diluvial bone remains were discovered in its soil layers. Here the first prehistoric human remains in Hungary were found, because Jenő Hillebrand in 1909 found the bones of a child about 1¼ years old in the cave. Stone tools are also common among the finds from this cave. The description was written on the basis of four publications. The parts dealing with Balla Cave from the 1931 edition of the book are repeated in the book *Nature Conservation and Natural Monuments*, which appeared in 1932. On 22 February 1934 at 8 a.m., with an outside temperature of –5 °C, Dancza János measured –4 °C in the front part of the cave level, –4.5 °C in the middle part of the cave level, and –4.5 °C in the rear part of the cave level. At the same points, but two metres higher, the temperatures were –4 °C, –4.5 °C and –3.2 °C.

According to the paper by Ottokár Kadić published in the 1939 *Barlangvilág*, the regular excavations carried out in the Szeleta Cave, Balla Cave, Herman Ottó Cave, Kecske-hole, Three-way Cave, Istállós-kői Cave, Büdös-pest and Puskaporosi-kőfülke located in the Bükk Mountains yielded so much prehistoric and early archaeological material that it would fill a museum hall. The Hungarian Tourist Encyclopedia, which appeared in 1941, has a separate entry for the cave. The publication states that the Balla Cave (Bükk Mountains) with an area of 30 × 8 m is located near Répáshuta, on the side of Balla Hill (639 m). The first human bone remains in Hungary were discovered in the cave in 1909. The one‑year‑old infant’s bone remains were not in the Paleolithic layer but lay in the higher yellow, limestone‑debris cave clay. In addition to the child’s skeleton there were also tiny bird and mammal bones.

The 1942 edition of *Országjárás* mentioned that one of the notable caves of the Bükk is the cave above Répáshuta, which is famous from an early archaeological point of view. Since 1951 the cave has been under archaeological protection. In 1976 the Balla Cave at Répáshuta, located in the 5300 (Bükk) cave cadastral area, became a cave of national significance. The *Magyar barlangtani bibliográfia* compiled by Károly Bertalan and László Schőnviszky in 1976 lists the cave name index, where the cave in the Bükk Mountains is mentioned under the name Balla Cave. The cave name index lists 44 literary works that deal with the cave.

In the manuscript titled *Hungary's Cave Register* completed in 1976, it is written that Balla Cave is located in the Bükk Mountains, in Répáshuta. Its spacious, hall-like entrance is on the side of Balla Hill, above the Répáshuta cemetery, at an altitude of 543 m a.s.l. The cave is 35 m long, 8 m wide and 10 m deep. It is a sagging, former stream cave. In its fill, prehistoric human remains and tools were found. The part of the manuscript concerning the cave is written based on one literary work. After the correction of cave names in the list of caves of national significance compiled in 1976, the cave appears in the list of caves of national significance compiled on 30 May 1977 as Balla Cave, located in the Bükk Mountains, Répáshuta.