Indian cave paintings, now up for auction, are hidden historical treasure

Adam Rollins
Posted 8/30/21

A cave containing 1,000-year-old Native American wall paintings, and 43 acres of land surrounding it in Warren County, will be auctioned by its private owners for an estimated $1 million to $3 …

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Indian cave paintings, now up for auction, are hidden historical treasure

Posted

A cave containing 1,000-year-old Native American wall paintings, and 43 acres of land surrounding it in Warren County, will be auctioned by its private owners for an estimated $1 million to $3 million, according to the Selkirk Auctioneers service in St. Louis.

While a number of area residents expressed surprise about the existence of “Picture Cave” as they shared the auction announcement on social media, the existence of the cave was once better known to the local community.

Selkirk describes Picture Cave as having two chambers filled with over 290 images created sometime between 800-1100 AD. Missouri archaeologist Michael Fuller, one of several academics who have studied the cave, maintains a website with detailed information and photos of the cave, including mention of a deep pit that once earned the nickname “Bottomless Cave.”

The location of the cave is kept intentionally vague by the land owners, auction company and academics who have visited, for fear of trespassing and vandalism. But historical records and longtime residents say the cave was once better known in the area – and signs of their past visits give the current owners good reason to be concerned.

A history of Warren County published in 1885, a copy of which is kept by the Warren County Historical Society, makes mention of “a cave to which curiosity seekers are always directed,” which was originally located by settler Jon Wyatt during a bear hunt. Although the cave paintings aren’t referenced, the account describes where the cave’s original nickname came from.

“There is one chamber in this cave that has never been explored. Daring adventurers quail before the fact that rocks thrown into this chamber have never been heard to strike bottom, and the impenetrable darkness of the room is fearfully suggestive,” according to the history. (Archaeologists have since suggested that the “soundless” pit is likely due to a layer of bat guano at the bottom.)

Ironically, the cave may have been more well known for the pit than the paintings because early explorers may not have even seen the pictures on the walls.

“I know a lot of people that have been in that cave and never noticed any paintings,” said Alvin Brandt, a longtime resident in the area near the cave. “My dad was in that cave when he was a teen in about 1910. All they had then was a kerosene lantern, so the lighting wasn’t very good.”

Brandt said it used to be more common for young people to visit that cave and others that dot the hillsides of southern Warren County. But landowners became less tolerant of trespassing, Brandt said, and so the number of cave explorers dwindled.

The land containing Picture Cave was purchased by its current owners for hunting in the 1950s, according to Selkirk. The owners, and academics who came to study the cave for its historical significance, later wrote that they discovered 100-plus years of graffiti left by visitors. It was also clear that people did eventually notice the paintings, as there are many places where fragments of the art have been pried out and taken, according to a 2015 book about the cave kept by the historical society.

“When we first visited this ... cave with the landowner, we found a small fragment of the wall on the cave floor. It was a pictograph of a bird. It had been pried off the wall with a wooden wedge,” the authors wrote. “It was obvious that the cave had been visited and potted for over 150 years – with historical names, dates, and graffiti going back to the 1840s.”

Images shared on Fuller’s archeology website show where words or initials have been scratched directly over some of the paintings.

Local historians say the cave paintings are remnants of a past that a dwindling number of people are aware of. Karen Wright, a member of the Warren County Historical Society, said early settlement of this area included frequent interaction and trade with Indians. Those interactions later became a violent conflict, until the only signs left of this area’s first inhabitants were buried arrowheads, bent trail marker trees, and rare finds like Picture Cave. Wright said fewer people today are interested in exploring that history.

“I think people just got tired of it after a while. Most of the people who were coming out from the east, they were coming out here just to have a home, but they don’t really care about the past,” Wright commented. She added that one of the other remnants of Native Americans is hidden in plain sight: Many of the oldest roads in the Missouri River valley were originally trails used frequently by Indians to access resources like salt.

What happens next to Picture Cave largely depends on who buys it at auction. Historical society members hope it goes to someone dedicated to preserving the historical treasure.


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