People & Caverns

Objective

Students will learn to understand the diverse uses of a cavern.

Background Information
Throughout history mankind has utilized caverns for numerous purposes. The dark, hidden, even-temperatured spaces have had their practical uses. In addition, the mysterious subterranean chambers have inspired numerous myths and legends. Walking slowly into the unknown and inhospitable, haunted by eerily echoing dripping water, visitors have always had strong emotional reactions to caverns. It is not hard to understand why primitive people believed caverns to be places where evil creatures lurked, or magical events transpired.
Listed below are ways that people have used caverns:

PRACTICAL & EVERYDAY USES

• Primitive people used caverns for shelter, refrigeration of their food, and as cemeteries
  
• In the past, caverns with their forbidding, dark interiors and complicated, hard-to-navigate passageways were sometimes used as jail cells
  
• Bat populated caverns have been mined for bat guano which makes an excellent fertilizer
  
• Geologists have learned much about the history of the earth by studying the exposed geological layers in caverns