DevilstepHollow Cave is a natural limestone cave located within Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park. The cave, part of the Mill Cave System, drains Grassy Cove, which is the largest sinkhole in North America. It contains numerous instances of Mississippian era Native American cave art. The entrance is 125 feet by 150 feet. [1] The cave stream forms the nearby Head of Sequatchie spring, the source of the Sequatchie River. [2]
The artwork within Devilstep Hollow Cave was created by the Mississippian culture, and contains 22 known images. [1] These include woodpeckers, fish, and an image of the falcon man. [3] The glyphs are thought to be around 1,100 years years old. [4]
Marion County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,837. Its county seat is Jasper. Marion County is part of the Chattanooga, AL–TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Marion County is in the Central time zone, while Chattanooga proper is in the Eastern time zone.
Cumberland County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 61,145. Its county seat is Crossville. Cumberland County comprises the Crossville, TN micropolitan statistical area.
The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms "Allegheny Plateau" and the "Cumberland Plateau" both refer to the dissected plateau lands lying west of the main Appalachian Mountains. The terms stem from historical usage rather than geological difference, so there is no strict dividing line between the two. Two major rivers share the names of the plateaus, with the Allegheny River rising in the Allegheny Plateau and the Cumberland River rising in the Cumberland Plateau in Harlan County, Kentucky.
The Sequatchie River is a 116-mile-long (187 km) waterway that drains the Sequatchie Valley, a large valley in the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. It empties into the Tennessee River downstream from Chattanooga near the Tennessee-Alabama state line.
The Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located at the border between Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, centered on the Cumberland Gap, a natural break in the Appalachian Mountains.
The Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) is a 150-mile (240 km) rail trail between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cumberland, Maryland. Together with the C&O Canal towpath, the GAP is part of a 335 mi (539 km) route between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., that is popular with through hikers and cyclists.
Dunbar Cave State Park is a 110 acre protected area in Clarksville, Tennessee. Dunbar Cave is the 280th largest cave complex in the world, stretching 8.067 miles (13 km) inward. The cave is located in an area of karst topography, including sinkholes, springs, and limestone bedrock. In front of the cave entrance is a large concrete poured structure with three distinct arches and the manmade Swan Lake. In March 2010 the cave was temporarily closed to tours and visitors because a bat infected with White nose syndrome was found in the cave.
Fall Creek Falls State Resort Park is a state park in Van Buren and Bledsoe counties, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The over 30,638-acre (123.99 km2) park is centered on the upper Cane Creek Gorge, an area known for its unique geological formations and scenic waterfalls. The park's namesake is the 256-foot (78 m) Fall Creek Falls, the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River.
Catoosa Wildlife Management Area is a large game-management area on the Upper Cumberland Plateau in Morgan, Cumberland and Fentress counties in Tennessee in the United States. It comprises 96,000 acres (332 km2) of wild land administered by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). The Management Area is funded by hunters and fishermen, and is popular with all outdoors enthusiasts, including backpackers, and whitewater rafters. It has many trails for hiking, of which the most notable is the Cumberland Trail. It also has gravel roads and dirt track four-wheel drive roads for motorized exploration. Catoosa ranges from gentle rolling hills to some of the most rugged and extreme terrain in the country. Many rivers and streams have cut deep canyons into the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains of the Management area allowing for beautiful vistas.
The Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park, commonly known as the Cumberland Trail, is a Tennessee hiking trail following a line of ridges and gorges along the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee. The trail begins at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and ends at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. The trail travels through 11 Tennessee counties and two time zones.
Cumberland Mountain State Park is a state park in Cumberland County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of 1,720 acres (7.0 km2) situated around Byrd Lake, a man-made lake created by the impoundment of Byrd Creek in the 1930s. The park is set amidst an environmental microcosm of the Cumberland Plateau and provides numerous recreational activities, including an 18-hole Bear Trace golf course.
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, abbreviated S.E.C.C., is the name given by modern scholars to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture. It coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from 1200 to 1650 CE.
Spiro Mounds is an Indigenous archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma. The site was built by people from the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. that remains from an American Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture. The 80-acre site is located within a floodplain on the southern side of the Arkansas River. The modern town of Spiro developed approximately seven miles to the south.
South Cumberland State Park is a state park in the middle and southeast portions of Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau.
Bledsoe's Station, also known as Bledsoe's Fort, was an 18th-century fortified frontier settlement located in what is now Castalian Springs, Tennessee. The fort was built by longhunter and Sumner County pioneer Isaac Bledsoe in the early 1780s to protect Upper Cumberland settlers and migrants from hostile Native American attacks. While the fort is no longer standing, its location has been verified by archaeological excavations. The site is now part of Bledsoe's Fort Historical Park, a public park established in 1989 by Sumner County residents and Bledsoe's descendants.
Grassy Cove is an enclosed valley in Cumberland County, Tennessee, United States. The valley is notable for its karst formations, which have been designated a National Natural Landmark. Grassy Cove is also home to a small unincorporated community.
Bledsoe Creek State Park is a state park in Sumner County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of 169 acres (0.68 km2) managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. The park spans much of the west shore of the Bledsoe Creek embayment of Old Hickory Lake, an impoundment of the Cumberland River created with the completion of Old Hickory Dam by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1954.
The Castalian Springs Mound State Historic Site (40SU14) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs in Sumner County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by Dr. Kevin E. Smith. A number of important finds have been associated with the site, most particularly several examples of Mississippian stone statuary and the Castalian Springs shell gorget held by the National Museum of the American Indian. The site is owned by the State of Tennessee and is a State Historic Site managed by the Bledsoe's Lick Association for the Tennessee Historical Commission. The site is not currently open to the public.
Petit Jean State Park is the oldest state park in Arkansas. It is located in the central northern part of the state, in western Conway County, atop Petit Jean Mountain, a ridge between the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains. One of the features the park is noted for is prehistoric rock art, some of which is accessible to park visitors via its hiking trails. A total of twelve such sites have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for their importance. Most of the rock art has been dated to about 1500 CE, and is not obviously associated with habitation sites or other sites bearing evidence of other Native American activities.
The Ancient Art Archive (AAA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation, visual documentation, and sharing of prehistoric works of art, particularly cave painting and petroglyphs, around the globe. The organization was founded in 2016 by photographer Stephen Alvarez following an assignment to photograph France's Chauvet Cave for National Geographic. As part of its mission to create and distribute 3D images of ancient artwork for educational purposes—many of which are threatened by climate change, mining operations, and vandalism—the Archive has launched the Mural of America, a collaboration of anthropologists, archaeologists, and Native American artists to document and provide cultural and scientific context to ten North American cultural landmarks. In 2022, members of the Archive team received wide media attention for their use of 3D photography in uncovering previously unseen cave art in Alabama's 19th Unnamed Cave.