The Ancient Native American Found 2.5 Miles Inside Mammoth Cave — And The Mystery Of Why His People Went So Deep Underground

Patty Jo Watson, the archaeologist at Washington University in St.

Louis whose work beginning in the early 1960s transformed the scientific understanding of what had happened inside the cave, called the ancient miners “the world’s greatest cave explorers.” The characterization is not hyperbole.

In terms of voluntary penetration into darkness, far from any natural light, using only handheld fire, they were going places that no other ancient population on Earth is documented to have gone.

Reading The Evidence — What Scientists Found Beginning In The 1960s