Jacobs Cavern facts for kids
Jacobs Cavern is a cave or rock shelter located east of Pineville in McDonald County, Missouri.
Discovering Jacobs Cavern
Jacobs Cavern is named after the person who found it, E. H. Jacobs from Bentonville, Arkansas. He explored the cave scientifically with Charles Peabody and Warren K. Moorehead in 1903. They shared their discoveries in several publications that same year.
The cave itself is quite small, more like a rock shelter under a large rock. It's made of limestone from the Mississippian subperiod. The roof is a flat piece of limestone, and the walls show clear layers of rock. You can also see dripstone (like stalactites and stalagmites) covering parts of the walls and floor.
The floor of the cave has an old layer of ash mixed with rock fragments, sandstone, flint tools, charcoal, and bones. Below this ash layer is a thick, yellow clay floor. The cave opening is about 21 meters long, and it goes back about 14 meters deep. The height inside varied from about 1.2 meters to 2.6 meters.
What Was Found Inside
When the explorers dug into the ash layer, they did it very carefully. They measured and removed each stalactite and stalagmite in sections. They found six human skeletons buried in the ashes.
They also found a lot of animal bones, including those from deer, bear, wolf, raccoon, opossum, beaver, buffalo, elk, turkey, woodchuck, tortoise, and hog. These animals lived at the same time as the people who used the cave.
Many tools were discovered too! These included three stone metates (grinding stones), one stone axe, one celt (a type of chisel), and fifteen hammerstones. Jacobs Cavern was especially rich in flint knives and projectile points (like arrowheads or spear points). In total, 419 objects were found, plus many fragments and pieces that were kept for study. They also found bone or horn awls (tools for making holes) and pieces of pottery.
How Old Are the Discoveries?
The simple style of the tools and pottery, along with the human remains, suggests that the people who lived here were older than the Mound Builders. One tool was found buried 50 centimeters under a stalagmite surface. Scientists have studied how fast stalagmites grow in other caves. If the stalagmites in Jacobs Cavern grew at a similar rate, it would have taken about 1968 years for that tool to be covered!
Outside the cave, there are polished rocks and pictographs (rock drawings). These also show that a very old prehistoric group lived in the area even before the Osage Indians, who were the historic owners before Europeans arrived.
