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with the Tennessee Mississippian period. The cave has several entrances, including both vertical pit and horizontal openings. It is most easily approached through a narrow climb-down opening, but it then opens into a wide and deep walking passage, partly occupied by an active stream. The stream dominates the cave, having eroded a bed into the ®oor sediments approximately 10 m wide. The passages extend for thousands of meters into the limestone bedrock. It is clear that the stream rises and falls with external rainfall, and ®ooding of the interior occurs regularly. This has produced overbank deposits at one edge of the main passage and has resulted in erosion of all cultural materials that may have been deposited on ledges along the streambed. In the deeper reaches of the cave, the stream ®ows from wall to wall, and only a few cane torch stoke marks witness human use of the cave in the deep passages. Radiocarbon ages have been obtained on two torch fragments from 15th Unnamed Cave’s inner zone (Table 10.1), and both indicate a Mississippian presence. In the ¤rst few hundred meters of walking passage, however, where the cave is widest, there was obviously a rich archaeological record at one time. Aquatic gastropods, mammal bone fragments, including a deer ulna awl, and chert ®akes were found scattered along the edges of the passage where eddies and stream banks protect some sediments from all but the most extreme ®ood Figure 10.4. Petroglyphs from 14th Unnamed Cave, West Virginia. The bottom one is the toothy mouth. 168 Simek, Cressler, and Pope events. Several undiagnostic ceramic sherds, limestone tempered, indicate a Woodland presence. In this same area, two human teeth were found, both adult premolars, possibly from the same individual. Neither is burned. Because the stream ®ows out of the cave, and these teeth were found at some distance from the entrance talus cone, it is certain that they were originally deposited inside the cave, perhaps even at greater distance from the opening than where they were found. Teeth, of course, are the most resistant elements of the human skeleton to decomposition and taphonomic attrition, so it may well be the case that these two teeth represent a once-rich skeletal assemblage. We cannot be certain of this, however. Given the heavily eroded nature of this sedimentary deposit, we do not want to venture a more extensive interpretation of the site’s cultural materials. Within 100 m of the walking entrance to 15th Unnamed Cave are more than 15 individual glyphs. The glyphs are disposed in two panels, both within sight of the cave opening, and include geometric shapes, a number of rayed circles probably representing the sun, a ¤lled oval, at least one human face ef¤gy without a toothy mouth, and ovals with vertical lines, i.e., the toothy mouth motif (Figure 10.5). These glyphs occur under a protected overhang of rock along the same passage wall where the teeth were found, and they, like the bones, may represent remnants of a more extensive, now eroded, record. Nevertheless, 15th Unnamed Cave contains evidence of the toothy mouth in undoubted spatial association with human interments. The only chronological information we have suggests Mississippian activity. 34th Unnamed Cave, Tennessee In many ways, 34th Unnamed Cave is the most important of the sites reported here because it represents a recently discovered and intact (unlooted) example of a Tennessee ledge burial site. First discovered by Cressler in 2000, the site has never before been discussed in the literature. In addition to numerous burials, the cave also contains a few petroglyphs in the cave dark zone, including one and maybe even two examples of the toothy mouth. It represents an accessible and almost pristine example of a mortuary site type that may have been quite common in prehistoric Tennessee. 34th Unnamed Cave was formed in the Bangor limestone of Tennessee’s Mississippian limestone series. There are nearly 1,000 m of interior passageways , with two entrances: an upper sinkhole pit and a lower horizontal stream entrance. The stream is active today, and the passage has to be waded to gain entry to interior reaches. Prehistorically, the lower entrance was used to bring the dead into the cave, and the art, all well in the dark zone, was probably produced by people entering this opening. Prehistoric glyphs in 34th Unnamed Cave are located in two areas, both in Southeastern Rock-Art Motif and Mortuary Caves 169 recesses in the cave wall...

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