Gcwihaba caves

Gcwihaba is a cave in Botswana located in Okavango Delta region. The Gcwihaba Caves were part of the Kalahari landscape around 2 million years ago, at least for the entire period of the Pleistocene. The name of the cave is a San word and stands for "hyena's lair". The cave is situated 10 km away from the Namibian border. In 1932 it was first shown to a European, Ghanzi region farmer Martinus Drotsky, and the main cavern was named Drotsky's cavern after him. Gwchihaba is a Botswana National Monument under the Monuments, Relics and Antiquities Act, and has been put forward to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. It is the type locality of the mineral gwihabaite (IMA1994-011). Even though nothing was found in the first 50 cm of cave during the excavations to affirm that the cave was settled as a camp, 51 stone artefacts (33 of them made from travertine) were released in the upper 50 cm of the cave. 50–80 cm of the cave is called The Terminal Pleistocene charcoal layer. More cultural relics were observed in this layer. Bones of African bullfrogs and pieces of ostrich eggshell were among the findings. Due to the isolated nature of these caves, a special flora and fauna has developed. Some Aloe species and the Namaqua fig tree are only unique to these caves' surroundings. The roots of these fig trees are attracted to humid cave space and they have grown to create beauti

Cave data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).