Mammoth Cave National Park
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Watson, Patty Jo, 1932-
setName: label: See more items in
content: Patty Jo Watson papers
label: See more items in
content: Patty Jo Watson papers / Series 1: Research / 1.3: The United States / The Southeast
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1962-2004
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky includes the longest cave system in the world, spanning over 400 miles. The majority of the work Watson conducted in the park was in Salts Cave, but she also worked in Mammoth Cave, Lee Cave, and Bluff Cave. Her work in these caves was designed to understand how prehistoric people used the caves and to discover information about the diet of those people and their food production methods (agriculatural cultivation was just beginning in the region) using paleofecal and botanical remains. Watson published her findings from Salts Cave in Patty Jo Watson, The Prehistory of Salts Cave, Kentucky  (Springfield: Illinois State Museum, 1969) and her findings from her further research in the other caves of the Park in Patty Jo Watson, ed., Archeology of the Mammoth Cave Area (New York: Academic Press, 1974). This section includes correspondence, maps, papers and articles, grant proposals and reports, surveys, and materials related to the publication of Archeology of the Mammoth Cave Area.