Assessing Human Activities, Sediment Deposition, and Pedogenesis at Crumps Cave Vestibule and Sink, Warren County, Kentucky

I request funds for excavations in Crumps Cave, Kentucky, to collect archaeological and geoarchaeological data as part of my dissertation project to refine the chronology of occupation, determine the range of prehistoric activities, and assess the geomorphological and pedological history of cave and sinkhole sites in the south-central Kentucky karst. More specifically, my research seeks to document evidence of anthropogenic forest impacts by fire and its timing in relation to intensive cave use in central Kentucky. The Late Archaic-Early Woodland transition (ca. 3500-2500 BP) in central Kentucky is a critical period for changes in land use, adoption of new subsistence technologies, and socio-economic reorganization. The proposed work at Crumps Cave is significant to cave and karst studies in three ways: (1) developing a model of hunter-gatherer and early horticultural utilization of holokarst terrains; (2) contributing to contemporary forest management literature by considering long-term history of karstic barrens and cedar glades ecosystems; and (3) elucidating the Holocene history of geogenic, biogenic, and anthropogenic sediment deposition in Crumps Cave sink and vestibule, and the effects of prehistoric human land use on cave systems.