Hohle

Hohle is a form encountered in German toponymy and dialectal spellings of Höhle, which in standard German means a cave or hollow. While Höhle is the common term for a natural cave, hohle appears mainly in place names and older texts as a nonstandard or dialectal variant. The usage is largely historical or locational rather than linguistic in contemporary writing.

In geography and archaeology, the most prominent example is Hohle Fels, a cave near Schelklingen in the Swabian Jura (Baden-Württemberg), Germany. Hohle Fels is a major Paleolithic site where researchers have uncovered some of the earliest known examples of figurative art and musical instruments in Europe. The toponym preserves the sense of a hollow space or cave in a form that differs from the standard Höhle.

Notable finds at Hohle Fels include the Venus of Hohle Fels, a small mammoth-ivory figurine dated to roughly 40,000 years ago, which is among the oldest known representations of the human form. In addition, artifacts from the same cave include some of the oldest surviving musical instruments, such as a flute fragment dated to about the same period. These discoveries have contributed to understandings of early modern human culture in Europe.

Beyond Hohle Fels, hohle as a spelling appears sporadically in other regional toponyms and in historical texts, but it is not a separate concept in German. In standard usage, Höhle remains the canonical noun for a cave, while hohle persists chiefly in proper names.