The largest cave figures in North America have been discovered in Alabama as a result of advanced photography.
In a study published on Tuesday in the journal Antiquity, researchers revealed that a cave in the northern Alabama countryside is home to carvings dating back about 1,000 years. Experts estimate that the carvings were made during the Woodland period.
The carvings, some of which extend up to 7ft long, depict various figures, including what appears to be people wearing Native American garments such as headdresses and carrying a rattle or weapon.
“They are either people dressed in regalia to look like spirits, or they are spirits,” archaeologist Jan Simek, a professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee and lead author of the study, told NBC.
Another carving features a curled up snake that experts largely believe is a diamond rattlesnake.
The carvings slowly faded into the cave’s walls over the next century as they gradually got covered by naturally occurring mud. Researchers, however, were able to discover the carvings after they used photographic photogrammetry to create photographic models of the cave’s ceiling. The technique combines digital photographs with 3D computerized models of a particular space.
The cave, which was discovered in the 1990s, is part of thousands of caves along the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau, stretching from southern Pennsylvania to Alabama. The precise location of the cave has not been disclosed as researchers keep it a closely guarded secret.
