Artists of the Dark Zone

Panels of artwork engraved by Native Americans between 1,000 and 400 years ago have been found deep within a cave now known as Unnamed Cave 11. More than 100 such caves have been discovered in the woodlands of Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky.(Alan Cressler)

On a spring afternoon in 2017, archaeologist Jan Simek led a group of graduate students into the dark, wet mouth of a Tennessee cave. They slipped past cave crickets and ducked under a colony of bats clinging to the ceiling. When they cam

Will Hunt is the author of Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet.