Uncovering the history of Russell Cave National Monument
Russell Cave National Monument. (Erin Harney/Alabama NewsCenter)
The National Park Service (NPS) turned 100 years old this year. Over the past century, the organization has grown from 35 national parks to more than 400 sites under the protection of the NPS today. From national seashores, monuments, heritage and historic sites, trails and military parks, the variety is as vast as the history they contain. There are nine National Park Service sites in Alabama that drew 790,000 visitors with a $31 million economic impact last year. Alabama NewsCenter is spending the rest of this centennial year highlighting each Alabama site.
Russell Cave National Monument
Russell Cave is an archaeological site near Bridgeport, Alabama. The site has “one of the most complete records of prehistoric cultures in the Southeast. Russell Cave provided shelter to prehistoric peoples for more than 10,000 years. Today, it provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 10,000 B.C. to 1650 A.D.,” the National Park Service (NPS) says.
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In the 1950s, the Tennessee Archaeological Society and the Smithsonian Institution conducted archaeological excavations that discovered the significance of the site. In 1956, the National Geographic Society purchased the site, over 300 acres, and donated it to the U.S. Department of the Interior to establish Russell Cave National Monument.
On May 11, 1961, under a proclamation by President John F. Kennedy, Russell Cave became Alabama’s only national monument. Kennedy said the site provided “outstanding archaeological and ethnological evidence of human habitation in excess of 8,000 years.”
Russell Cave was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 15, 1966.
The Formation of Russell Cave
Over 300 million years ago Alabama was covered by inland sea. As the skeletons of plankton and shells of deceased sea life sank to the bottom of the sea, the pressure of the water compressed the skeletons and shells, and slowly transformed them into limestone. As the sea retreated, water flowed through the limestone, slowly cutting thousands of tunnels and caverns.
“About 9,000 to 11,000 years ago, a cavern roof collapsed next to a hillside, creating a sink hole and exposing a tunnel carrying water deeper beneath the ground,” said the NPS. Over time, additional falling rocks and sediment from the creek built up at the entrance of the tunnel, creating land that was higher than the stream bed. It was at this time, as early as 7,000 B.C., that humans began using the cave as a shelter.
The Archaeological Record
Russell Cave, under current drought conditions. (Erin Harney/Alabama NewsCenter)
The archaeological evidence within the cave spans three time periods: Archaic (7000 to 500 B.C.), Woodland (500 B.C. to 1000 A.D.) and Mississippian (1000 A.D. to 1600 A.D.).
“Russell Cave offers one of the longest and most complete archaeological records in the eastern United States. The artifacts found here indicate intermittent human habitation for almost 9,000 years. … The artifacts left behind tell the story of the cave: the ebb and flow of habitation, whether the users were family groups or hunting parties, what they wore, what they ate and the tools they used,” the NPS says.
Archaeological excavations of the 1950s and 1960s dug more than 42 feet into the cave floor, discovering bone tools, jewelry, pottery fragments, animal bones and arrow heads, some of which can be seen in the museum at the site’s Visitor Center.
The animal bones recovered from the excavations reveal that many of the animals hunted by prehistoric people include species that are still living in Alabama today, including the river otter, raccoon, American black bear, eastern cottontail and white-tailed deer. There are also bones from species that are no longer found in Alabama or have gone extinct, such as the peccary (a boar-like animal), cougars and giant armadillos.
“Sites like Russell Cave have helped scientists determine which animals once lived in the state,” said Jun Ebersole, director of collections at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham.
“During the latter parts of the Ice Age, Alabama looked very similar to how it is today. There were not glaciers this far south and the climate was only 5 to 10 degrees cooler than today. The northern half of Alabama was covered with cold-tolerant boreal plants that now only exist in the northern reaches of North America,” he said.
“After the Ice Age, when global temperatures rose, the boreal plants in Alabama were replaced by the deciduous plants and trees that we see today. The animal species that had been supported by boreal plants moved out of Alabama or went extinct,” said Ebersole.
This past summer, the University of the South, of Sewanee, Tennessee, hosted an archaeological field school at Russell Cave, the first major excavation in over five decades. The goal of the excavation was to explore a trench near the mouth of the cave. The archaeological artifacts from the summer field school are still being catalogued and analyzed, so there is no new information available at this time, said Dr. Stephen B. Carmody, project director and post-doctoral fellow in Archaeology and visiting assistant professor at the University of the South. According to Russel Cave NPS staff, the excavations will continue next year.
Those visiting Russell Cave today will see part of the excavation unit from the boardwalk. No one is permitted to enter the cave without a special permit.
Visiting the Site
Russell Cave National Monument is at: 43729 County Road 98, Bridgeport, AL 35740. The Visitor Center has park information and maps, restrooms, museum displays and a gift shop. The site is open daily, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except Thanksgiving, Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.
Some things to do at the site include viewing the museum exhibitions, taking the boardwalk to view the cave entrance, hiking one of the nature trails, having a picnic near the Visitor Center, or signing up for a guided tour or demonstration. Daily ranger-led interpretive programs are offered every day at 11 a.m. on days the park is open. Programs include guided cave shelter tours (tours are only led into the cave shelter) nature walks, lantern hikes and more. For more information, call 256-495-2672, extension 113.
