The Rime of the Ancient Miners
Jay Franklin · 1999
Terminal Archaic hunter-gatherers explored and heavily uti l ized deep passages of 3rd Unnamed Cave, which l ies at the bottom of the Western Cumberland Plateau Escarpment in north central Tennessee. Footprints, torch stoke marks, chert mining pits with d igging stick marks, fl intknapping debris accumulations and associated fireplaces, and petroglyphs remain as evidence of this intensive uti l ization. The focus of this thesis is largely technological, centering on the chert mining and subsequent reduction activities that fol lowed. Specifically, insight into four major issues is developed, including the nature of the flintknapping activities practiced deep within 3rd Unnamed Cave, the goal(s) of the reduction episodes, the chronology of the mining exploitation, and the possible reasons for this exploitation. The first two issues concern techniques and technology and are addressed primarily through core refitting. Refitting is the most rel iable and straightforward means by which to address the technological questions. Core refitting has demonstrated that the prehistoric miners tested and reduced cobbles using the bipolar, or split cobble, technique. Objects of export were relatively large exterior flakes. Refitting was also used to test the general uti l ity of three other methods of l ithic analysis. Results suggest that refitting provides a much finer-grained analysis and that other methods may not be generally applicable. Mass analysis was used as an independent l ine of analysis to complement the refitting and to test whether the flintknapping