Sedlecké skály, protected area in Czech Republic

Sedlecké skály is a rock defile on the left bank of the Vltava, made of alternating greywacke and shale of the Kralupy-Zbraslav group from the late Proterozoic, inclined 40° to 90° east. The southern part is wooded with maples, oaks and black locust; the northern part has sharp rock ledges with steppe vegetation on top.

The rock wall is made of Upper Proterozoic greywackes and shales of the Kralupy-Zbraslav group, weakly contact-metamorphosed by magma. Sedlec, with its former brickworks, yielded Neanderthal finds dated to 250,000 BC, and the slopes show fireplaces from repeated settlement. The site was declared a protected natural formation in 1982 and re-declared in 2002 with unchanged boundaries.

The name comes from the village of Sedlec, whose former brickworks yielded Neanderthal remains dated to 250,000 BC. From the early 5th century BC farming cleared the original forest, and until the 1950s smallholdings with orchards and pastures surrounded the rocks; after the residents left, blackthorn and black locust spread over the former steppe. Look for the yellow Aurinia saxatilis on the rock ledges in April and May.

The monument lies on the left bank of the Vltava between the northern edge of Sedlec and the Roztocký háj – Tiché údolí reserve, bordered on the west by Suchdol. The southern part is wooded and gently sloping; the northern part has sharp rock ledges with steppe vegetation. The lower gorges are overgrown and hard to enter, and the lower slopes were affected by the railway corridor built in the 20th century.

The reserve protects a population of the Czech endemic beetle Cylindromorphus bohemicus, described in 1933 by Professor I. The steep rock outcrops were once grazed only occasionally by goats and sheep, which is why their steppe vegetation survived. A small stream springs 130 m above the site and feeds pools inhabited by fire salamanders.