The First American Cave is an
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
and
palentological site in downtown
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
,
Davidson County, Tennessee
Davidson County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located in the heart of Middle Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 715,884, making it the second most populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Nashville ...
. The site was initially recognized in 1971 during construction of the foundations for the
First American National Bank building at 315 Deaderick Street, when workers noticed a collection of bones being unearthed within a pocket of dirt approximately 30 feet below ground surface. Excavations were halted and both the
Vanderbilt University Department of Anthropology and the
Southeastern Indian Antiquities Survey were notified of the find.
It was subsequently determined that the bones included those of humans, as well as a number of animal species, including a
saber-tooth cat
Machairodontinae is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the family Felidae (true cats). They were found in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, living from about 16 million until ...
. The dirt pocket from which the bones had been disinterred was in fact a filled in cave, most of which had been destroyed by construction. The
Southeastern Indian Antiquities Survey was given permission to excavate within the remaining portion of the cave with the assistance of
Vanderbilt University students.
John Guilday of the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History later conducted an examination of all bones recovered from the site, and published the results in the July 1977 issue of the ''Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Sciences''.
[
] Although Guilday may have conducted an inventory of the human remains from the site, none was ever published. Today the human remains from the site are in the collection of the
Vanderbilt University Department of Anthropology.
Radiocarbon analysis of human remains from the cave returned dates of 2390+/-145
B.P. and 1690+/-115 B.P., placing them within the
Woodland period
In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...
of regional prehistory. Portions of these burials were identified
in situ approximately 16-feet above the depth of the bones of the saber-toothed cat.
According to Guilday, collagen from the ''Smilodon'' remains returned radiocarbon dates of 9410+/-155 B.P. and 10,035+/-650 B.P.
These dates are extremely late for the presence of ''Smilodon'' in the Southeast, and are likely the result of sample contamination.
As a result of interest that the site generated, First American Bank agreed to engineer around the small percentage of cave deposits that had not been destroyed. These deposits were vaulted over using steel and concrete, and preserved in an artificial cavern beneath the lowest parking garage level.
An access hatch and ladder provided entry to the space. Newspaper and magazine articles from the early- to mid-1970s show there was interest among the archaeological community in conducting further excavations in what remained of the cave
and in 1973 ''
Time'' magazine reported that the bank was "preparing to let archaeologists resume their digging". In 1976 Southeastern Indian Antiquities Survey founder
Bob Ferguson wrote that he was "certain much remains to be discovered when work resumes in the cavern, so thoughtfully preserved by the First American National Bank."
However, plans to conduct additional investigations were apparently abandoned around the time bank construction was completed.
In 1978, a group of
cavers from the Nashville Grotto visited the site but were underwhelmed by the lack of intact cavern or open passages. The next documented entry into the cave did not occur until 2008, when archaeologists from the Tennessee Division of Archaeology revisited the site.
The First American Center was renamed when
First American National Bank merged with
AmSouth Bank, and again when
AmSouth merged with
Regions Financial Corporation
Regions Financial Corporation is a bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail banking and commercial banking, trust, stockbrokerage, and mortgage services. Its banking subsidia ...
. In 2013 Regions moved, and the majority of the building was taken over by the financial services company
UBS
UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...
. That same year the building was renamed from Regions Center to
UBS Tower
One North Wacker, UBS Tower is a 50-story () skyscraper at One North Wacker Drive in Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, Illinois. The tower was built from 1999 to 2002 to accommodate Swiss investment bank UBS, UBS AG's Chicago headquarters. Origina ...
.
Until 2013 a display in the first floor lobby included bones from the ''Smilodon'' and other faunal material from the cave site. A replica of a ''Smilodon'' skull from the
La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...
served as the centerpiece of the display. The Smilodon upper canine that led to the site discovery in 1971 is not on display, and is apparently no longer in the bank collection.
The remains are now on display at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, home of the NHL Nashville Predators
In 1997 the ''Smilodon'' remains from First American Cave became the inspiration for the logo of the
Nashville Predators hockey team and their mascot
Gnash. Before the team exits the locker room prior to each home game, a video is shown on the
jumbotron of a computer-generated saber-toothed cat emerging from the ground beneath downtown Nashville. The
logo for AmSouth (as well as its predecessor, First American) was once prominently featured in the video but was digitally deleted when the bank dropped sponsorship of the team following the 2002-2003
NHL season.
See also
*
UBS Tower
One North Wacker, UBS Tower is a 50-story () skyscraper at One North Wacker Drive in Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, Illinois. The tower was built from 1999 to 2002 to accommodate Swiss investment bank UBS, UBS AG's Chicago headquarters. Origina ...
*
List of archaeological sites in Tennessee
*
Saber-toothed cat
*
Nashville Predators
References
{{Reflist
Archaeological sites in Tennessee
Geography of Nashville, Tennessee
Smilodon