The World Reborn: A Phenomenological Study of 12th Unnamed Cave, Tennessee through Photogrammetry, 3D GIS, and Archaeoacoustics

Traditional methods for analyzing rock art locations within caves tend to rely on two-dimensional (2D) mapping methods. While useful, these techniques do not effectively capture the phenomenology, or experiential characteristics, of caves as physical spaces. This dissertation therefore adopts a three-dimensional perspective to study the distribution of rock art inside 12th Unnamed Cave, a dark-zone cave art site in Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau region, with the goal of identifying why certain types of images appear in their respective contexts. Photogrammetry is used to produce a three-dimensional (3D) model of the cave’s interior, on which surveyed rock art locations are georeferenced for spatial analysis. Tools available through 3D GIS applications are then applied to the 3D model to measure the volume of different chambers and conduct line-of-sight analysis on the cave’s rock art. Additionally, archaeoacoustic data is integrated into the 3D model to identify possible relationships between rock art locations and the ambient and acoustic sound properties throughout the cave. Findings indicate that the locations of 12th Unnamed Cave’s rock art are by no means random, but likely based on the artists’ experiences of different spaces and possibly tied to cosmological models of world renewal and rebirth.