Tennessee Cave Art Charts Cosmology Of Prehistoric Peoples

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Credit http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jul/19/making-tough-choices-ok-with-uts-interim-president/

Jan Simek, University of Tennessee distinguished professor of Anthropology, records Native American art in an undisclosed Tennessee cave (2008) / Photo by Alan Cressler

The focus of a recent article in the journal Antiquity is on some of the oldest art yet found in North America… and it’s in Tennessee.

Archaeologists, starting with Charles Faulkner from the University of Tennessee, have been documenting prehistoric rock art in Tennessee and around the Southeastern US since the1970s.

Jan Simek, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, is now continuing that work. He says the rock art found in the dark zones of some Tennessee caves is among the continent’s earliest art. Simek also says it reveals aspects of the cosmological beliefs of the prehistoric people who made this art…

Link to the full Antiquity article PDF file