Yes, troglodytes still exist, depending on what you mean by the word. If you’re asking about people who live in caves or carved-out underground dwellings, thousands of people around the world still do, from southern Australia to North Africa to central China. If you’re asking about cave-dwelling animals, entire ecosystems of species thrive deep underground, many of them found nowhere else on Earth. The word “troglodyte” covers both meanings, and both are alive and well.
What “Troglodyte” Actually Means
The word comes from the Greek “trōglē,” meaning hole or cave. Merriam-Webster defines a troglodyte as “a member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves.” It also carries a second, more casual meaning: a person with reclusive habits or outdated attitudes. That insulting usage is probably the one most people encounter first, but the original meaning is purely descriptive.
In biology, the same Greek root gives us “troglobiont,” an animal that lives exclusively in caves, and “troglophile,” one that can survive in caves but doesn’t have to. These terms show up in zoology and ecology papers, while “troglodyte” itself is mostly reserved for humans.
People Still Live Underground
The ancient image of humans huddled in natural caves is mostly gone, but underground and cave-carved dwellings remain practical homes for real communities today. These aren’t museum relics. People raise families, cook meals, and go about daily life in them.
In Coober Pedy, a remote opal-mining town in the Australian outback, roughly 50 percent of the population of around 2,500 live in homes dug directly into hillsides. The reason is simple: summer temperatures above ground regularly hit 47°C (about 117°F), while the underground homes, called “dugouts,” stay at a comfortable 24°C (75°F) year-round with no heating or cooling systems. The local sandstone is stable enough to support large room spans, and it’s common for families to buy an adjacent plot and tunnel through to connect dwellings, creating sprawling underground houses.
In Lesotho, a small country in southern Africa, families still live in the Kome Caves, traditional dwellings built into sandstone overhangs. Residents maintain these homes by reapplying layers of mud and manure each year, a practice that has continued for generations. In China’s Loess Plateau, a type of cave dwelling called a yaodong has sheltered communities for centuries. These homes are carved into the soft, loess soil of hillsides and remain occupied today, though their numbers have declined as younger generations move to cities.
Parts of Tunisia, particularly the town of Matmata, still have underground pit houses that were famously used as a filming location for the original Star Wars. And in the Loire Valley of France, troglodyte homes carved into limestone cliffs have been updated with modern plumbing, electricity, and Wi-Fi. Some sell on the real estate market like any other home.
Why Underground Living Persists
The core advantage is temperature. Earth temperatures underground fluctuate far less than air temperatures at the surface. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the surrounding soil absorbs excess heat in hot weather and provides insulation in cold weather, making earth-sheltered homes naturally energy efficient. In extreme climates like Coober Pedy’s, this isn’t a novelty. It’s survival.
Modern engineering has solved many of the old drawbacks. Passive ventilation systems, using techniques like windcatchers and buried air pipes, can precondition incoming air by exchanging heat with the surrounding soil before it reaches living spaces. One prototype design channels air through pipes deep into a hillside, delivering fresh, temperature-regulated air directly into rooms. Studies have found that optimized underground ventilation can reduce energy use by nearly 29 percent compared to mechanical ventilation in above-ground buildings.
The main health concern is radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can accumulate in enclosed underground spaces. The Department of Energy flags soil radon levels as a factor to consider, though established mitigation methods exist for both conventional and earth-sheltered homes. Proper ventilation design largely addresses this risk.
UNESCO-Recognized Troglodyte Sites
Several of the world’s most famous troglodyte settlements carry UNESCO World Heritage status, a recognition that underscores their cultural and architectural significance. The list includes Cappadocia in Turkey, where volcanic rock cones were carved into entire underground cities; Petra in Jordan, with its elaborate facades cut directly into sandstone cliffs; the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia; the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali, home to the Dogon people; the Mogao Caves in China; and Mesa Verde in the United States, where Ancestral Puebloans built cliff dwellings into canyon walls. Matera in southern Italy, where people lived in carved limestone caves called “sassi” until the government relocated residents in the 1950s, has since been restored and is now a thriving tourist destination.
Some of these sites are purely historical, but others, like parts of Cappadocia and the Bandiagara Escarpment, remain home to living communities that continue traditions stretching back hundreds or thousands of years.
Cave-Dwelling Animals Are Thriving
If you’re curious about non-human troglodytes, the answer is even more definitive. Thousands of animal species live exclusively in caves, and scientists continue to discover new ones. These organisms, called troglobionts, have evolved a distinctive set of traits shaped by total darkness and limited food. The most common adaptations include the loss of eyes and skin pigment, longer limbs and antennae, and enhanced non-visual senses like touch and smell.
The Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) is one of the best-studied examples. Surface populations of this species have normal eyes and coloring, but cave populations have small, degenerated eye remnants buried within their eye sockets and are completely albino. Different cave populations show varying degrees of eye reduction, giving scientists a living snapshot of evolution in progress. A cave-dwelling isopod crustacean (Asellus aquaticus) shows a similar pattern: surface forms have functioning compound eyes with four visual units, while cave populations range from fragmented, misshapen eye structures to no visible eye remnants at all.
These adaptations aren’t limited to fish and crustaceans. Cave-dwelling flatworms have lost both eyes and pigmentation entirely. A Hawaiian planthopper in the genus Oliarus has lost its eyes and pigment, reduced its wings (useless in a cave), and grown oversized antennae to navigate in the dark. Each of these species represents an independent evolutionary experiment in adapting to life without light.
Cave ecosystems are fragile, and many troglobionts exist in only a single cave system, making them vulnerable to groundwater contamination, development, and climate shifts. But as a category of life, cave-dwelling animals are abundant and widespread, found on every continent with limestone geology.
The Short Answer
Troglodytes, in both the human and animal sense, are very much still around. Tens of thousands of people worldwide live in underground or cave-carved homes, some by cultural tradition, others by practical choice. And underground ecosystems harbor a rich diversity of uniquely adapted species that biologists are still cataloging. The word may carry an outdated, even insulting connotation in casual English, but the reality it describes is current, practical, and in many cases, thriving.