page_title: Schmerling Caves
section_title: Name, location, and finds
hierarchical_section_title: Schmerling Caves / Name, location, and finds
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Environs des fr:Grottes Schmerling, lieu de découverte des premiers restes fr:néandertaliens, découvert en 1830 par fr:Philippe-Charles Schmerling, fr:Awirs, fr:Engis / fr:Flémalle, fr:Province de Liège, fr:Belgique. Au-dessus, le Plateau des Fagnes duquel est descendu Schmerling pour explorer les grottes. Les grottes se trouvent dans un vallon sur la droite, invisible depuis la route (et de cette vue) English: Landscape around the Schmerling Caves, place of the first discovered neandertalian remains by Philippe-Charles Schmerling in 1830 - Awirs, Flémalle / Engis, Liège, Belgium. Above, the 'Plateau de Fagnes', from where Schmerling climbed down to explore the caves. The caves are in a smal valley right to the plateau, unvisible from the road (this view)
context_page_description: The Schmerling Caves are a group of caves on the right bank of the stream called the Awirs, near the village of Awirs in Flémalle, Belgium. The caves are notable for their past fossil finds, particularly of hominins. They were explored in 1829 by Philippe-Charles Schmerling, who discovered, in the lower cave, the remains of two individuals, one of which, now known as Engis 2, was a fossil of the first Neanderthal ever found; the other was a Neolithic homo sapiens. Also known as Trô Cwaheur or Trou Caheur, this lower cave has since collapsed. A third cave was destroyed because of work on the adjacent quarry, the Ancienne Carrière des Awirs.
  The caves have been classified on the list of Cultural Heritage of Wallonia sites since 1978, as well as Exceptional Cultural Heritage of Wallonia since 2013, because of the Neanderthal fossil.
context_section_description: Schmerling named the caves for Engis because he accessed them from the Plateau des Fagnes, which is in the Engis commune. He was able to reach them by lowering himself with a rope and sliding down the slope of the rock face. The caves themselves are actually within the boundaries of the commune of Awirs. In 1951, a local group "corrected" the error by placing a plaque at the lower cave, identifying it as the Schmerling Cave.
  Schmerling thought he had found the remains of three people in the caves. In the vicinity, he also found tools fashioned by humans. The tools and the carvings made with silex led him to argue that "antediluvian" man's hands must have been responsible even if human remains hadn't been found; Schmerling was thus one of the first to accept the existence of a prehistoric human. The child's skull was not identified as Neanderthal until 1936.
  A monument for Schmerling, consisting of a bust on a base made of stone, was erected at the foot of the hill in 1989; it was moved to the town square of Awirs in 2001.
caption: View of the Awirs quarry, with overhanging Plateau des Fagnes in the valley of Awirs, on the right bank of the stream, coming from the confluence with the Meuse. The caves are to the right of the quarry.
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