[1] The first excavation took place in 1870, yielding remnants of cave bears, reindeer, mammoths and horses as well as tools belonging to the Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic.

Further excavations during 1958 to 1960, 1977, and 2002 yielded a number of spectacular finds, including several specimens of prehistoric sculpture such as an ivory bird and a human-lion hybrid figure similar to the Löwenmensch figurine but only 2.5 cm tall.

[2] In 2008, a team from the University of Tübingen, led by archaeologist Nicholas Conard, discovered an artifact known as the Venus of Hohle Fels, dated to about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.

The instrument was found near the base of the Aurignacian deposits at Hohle Fels by a team led by Nicholas Conard of the institute of archaeological sciences at the University of Tübingen.

Veerle Rots, of the University of Liège in Belgium was able to make four twisted strands of twine, using a bronze replica of the Hohle Fels cave device, an example of reconstruction archaeology.

A similar 15,000 years old device, made of reindeer antler, was found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset and at many other sites.

Each valley would contain a core area of around 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) length, surrounded by a buffer zone of a least 100 m (330 ft) width.