Paleo-Indian pictographs (~2100 years old) (Devil's Looking Glass, Main Cave, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA)

            Paleo-Indian pictographs (~2100 years old) on an upright loose slab of limestone (likely the Ste. Genevieve Limestone, Middle Mississippian) in Kentucky, USA.

The dark gray to black figures seen here are prehistoric Indian charcoal drawings on a slab of limestone in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, the longest cave on Earth.  Cave passages are frequently partially to mostly filled with sediments and breakdown.  Breakdown refers to relatively large slabs and block of rock that have detached from cave ceilings and walls.  The rock shown above is a piece of breakdown that may have been purposefully set upright.  The charcoal drawings have been radiocarbon dated to ~2100 years old, which is within the known window of Mammoth Cave visitation by prehistoric Indians in Kentucky.  The figure at center left is an anthropomorph with arms and legs outstretched.  What the zig-zag figure at center right represents is uncertain.  Known prehistoric Indian activities in Mammoth Cave include gypsum "mining" (= chipping away at gypsum speleothem crusts on the walls of cave passages) and chert/flint "mining" (= whacking pieces of chert nodules from cave walls and ceilings; chert nodules are relatively common in some of the stratigraphic intervals exposed at Mammoth Cave).  The chert was knapped and used to make various tools and/or projectile points.  The cave was also used for burial purposes.  Some Indian burial sites with preserved, desiccated bodies have been discovered in the Mammoth Cave System, including some non-buried "mummies".  One such body was discovered only recently, in the 2000s, along an active tourist trail.

The white scratches on this rock are tourist vandalism.

Indian artifacts were formerly abundant in Mammoth Cave - many have been removed over the last 200 years.  Modern Mammoth Cave archaeologists and park officials are hypersecretive about current archaeological research and discoveries in the cave.

Locality: Devil's Looking Glass, Main Cave, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA

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Taken on: August 14, 2012

Tags:

prehistoric

Paleo-Indian

pictograph

pictographs

Devil's

Looking

Glass

Main

Cave

Mammoth

Kentucky

limestone

Ste.

Genevieve

Mississippian

charcoal

anthropomorph

anthropomorphs « less

Sets appears in: • Geology, History, Archaeology, Biology of Mammoth Cave National Park (Kentucky, USA) • Kentucky Rocks & Fossils more » • Main Cave (Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA) • Petroglyphs & Pictographs (Rock Art) « less

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