Jf. Simek et al., THE CONTEXT OF EARLY SOUTHEASTERN PREHISTORIC CAVE ART - A REPORT ON THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF 3RD UNNAMED CAVE, American antiquity, 63(4), 1998, pp. 663-677
In the deep recesses of ''3rd Unnamed Cave,'' a karst cavern in Tennes
see, evidence for an ancient association between dark zone cave art an
d chert mining has recently been documented. The art comprises petrogl
yphs on the ceiling of a chamber more than I km from the cave entrance
. On the floor below the art, natural sediments were excavated prehist
orically to obtain high-quality chert nodules. Radiocarbon age determi
nations place the mining during the Terminal Archaic period. Studies i
n lithic technology, geoarchaeology, and petroglyph description are pr
esented.