This is why the hypothesis that gypsum was used as a pigment — as a white colorant for bodies, objects, or architectural surfaces — cannot be confirmed or denied by the archaeological evidence.

The application, if it happened, is gone.

The cave preserved the tools and the mining marks but not the product.

How The Cave Preserves — And What Preservation Actually Means

The extraordinary preservation of archaeological material inside Mammoth Cave’s dry upper passages is not magic.

It is a consequence of specific physical conditions that happen to be hostile to the biochemical processes that normally decompose organic material.

Decomposition requires microorganisms — bacteria, fungi — and those microorganisms require water to be metabolically active.