The cultural importance of karst and caves

Karst landscape and caves can be perceived by different people in an equally varied way. From laymen to scientists, caves assume different meanings according to the historical and cultural conditions of a particular society. Therefore, one can say that the human relationship with caves is not really new in the history of mankind. Neither is new the motivation for their use as shelters, safe houses and sacred places. Thus caves and karst are important historical and geographic records of specific regions. They often present common features of various cultures as shown throughout this work. This book, based on the author's doctoral dissertation, is intended to portrait karst landscapes and caves by showing their relation to cultural and religious tourism, based on an extensive bibliographical review and field visits combining physical and human studies.