The people who went underground were not improvising their light sources on the morning of a trip.

They were using material that had been gathered and prepared as part of an organized pre-trip process.

The logistics of the mining operation — torch preparation, mussel shell collection from the river, preparation of gourd bowls for mineral collection, food preparation for miners who might be underground for hours — imply a level of organizational complexity that is not usually attributed to Late Archaic and Early Woodland communities.

These were not simple foragers grabbing whatever was available and heading underground on impulse.