The cave’s interior passages, explored and mapped by ancient miners long before any European entered Kentucky, represented a body of geographic knowledge that was held by specific people and passed forward.

The Stopping Point — Why The Miners Eventually Left

Around 200 BCE — roughly the end of the period archaeologists call the Early Woodland — the evidence for active mining in Mammoth Cave declines dramatically.

The dates on the torch fragments stop.

The mining marks on the walls date from before this period.

The archaeological evidence of sustained Indigenous presence in the deep cave passages essentially ends.

The cave then sat, in this sense, untouched for approximately two millennia.