A small abandoned limestone quarry in the Neandertal sheltering rare ravine forest and rock communities, right beside the Neanderthal discovery site.
Laubacher Steinbruch
Laubacher Steinbruch is a 6-hectare nature reserve in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, located on the edge of the town of Mettmann in the Neandertal valley. It protects an abandoned limestone quarry whose plant communities and rocky habitats developed after quarrying activities ceased, creating a mosaic of damp ravine forest, dry rocky slopes, lime-rich scree vegetation, and open limestone rocks.
The reserve sits directly beside the famous Neanderthal Museum and the historic find site of the original Neanderthal fossils, and the protected area forms part of the larger Neandertal FFH / Natura 2000 site. Because the quarry was abandoned to natural processes and additional rock faces were deliberately re-exposed, Laubacher Steinbruch has developed into a regionally important refuge for habitat types that have become rare in the densely settled Bergisches Land region, including species-rich maple-ash ravine forest and thermophilous lime-rock vegetation.
What makes the area especially noteworthy is the combination of moist and dry microhabitats within a very small footprint: shaded ravine bottoms dominated by sycamore maple and ash, a distinctive population of wych elm in the second tree layer, sun-exposed limestone cliffs supporting specialized ferns and stonecrops, and open, heathy grassland used by sand lizards. Management aims to maintain this contrast between forest and open rock, allowing the area to function as a small but ecologically rich stepping stone within the wider Neandertal conservation corridor.
