The torch fragments that date from the mining period stop.

The evidence of mining activity on cave walls dates from before this point.

Something changed.

The archaeological record of the Middle Woodland period in the Eastern woodlands shows significant cultural transformations.

The Hopewell culture, which peaks during this period (roughly 100 BCE to 400 CE), was in many ways more elaborate and more geographically connected than what preceded it — the Hopewell exchange network moved materials over enormous distances, the ceremonial earthworks grew in scale and complexity, and the ritual treatment of the dead became more elaborate.

But the Hopewell culture, for all its material sophistication, does not appear to have continued the deep cave mining that the Early Woodland communities conducted at Mammoth Cave.