Two upcoming events in Crossville, Tenn., will focus on ancient cave art in Middle Tennessee.
On Tuesday, University of Tennessee anthropology professor Dr. Jan Simek will be featured in a program at the Palace Theatre. He will illustrate his talk with photographs taken by Alan Cressler, and those photos will be used in a later exhibit at the Shanks Center for the Arts.
According to researchers, archaeologists have discovered an elaborate series of drawings made by American Indian people deep within caves in Middle Tennessee. Some of the drawings are in soft mud, a thin layer of clay sediment left there during long-ago floods and maintained by the cave’s unchanging temperature and humidity. Some of the caves contain white lines etched into limestone.
After being studied with carbon-dating charcoal from half-burned slivers of cane, the dates vary from 800 years old (belonging to the Mississippian people) to older, around 4000 B.C. (6,000 years ago).
There are more than 70 known dark-zone cave sites east of the Mississippi, but the bulk lie in Middle Tennessee, according to a news release. Of those, the greater number are on the Cumberland Plateau. Most of the caves are unnamed (as in 12th Unnamed) to protect their locations.