page_title: Schmerling Caves
section_title: Other finds
hierarchical_section_title: Schmerling Caves / Description / Other finds
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Engis 1, Un des crânes d'fr:Engis (fr:homos sapiens), découvert en 1830 par fr:Philippe-Charles Schmerling - collection du fr:Grand Curtius à fr:Liège English: Engis 1, Engis Skull (Homo sapiens), discovered by Philippe-Charles Schmerling - Grand Curtius collection, Liège Deutsch: Engis 1, Sapiens-Fund aus Engis: das erste wissenschaftlich beschriebene Exemplar eines Homo sapiens, das aber erst Jahrzehnte später zu dieser Art gestellt wurde.
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: There was a third cave, to the east, which was destroyed in the exploitation of the quarry. Later researchers who explored the hill found two more caves, one of them a grave site with two Neolithic skeletons.
  Grains of wheat were found in the Engis cave.
caption: Engis 1, one of two skulls found by Schmerling, is of a Neolithic homo sapiens; collection of the Curtius Museum.
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