Archaeology uses slow, careful excavation to recover evidence of how past peoples lived and died, with mapping, photography, and detailed notes preserving information that careless digging can destroy. Although the University of Missouri had known of Graham Cave since the 1930s, excavations did not begin until after World War II, when plans to bulldoze the cave deposits for conversion to a stock barn prompted action. From 1949 to 1951, three University of Missouri summer archaeology field sessions led by Wilfred Logan under the guidance of Carl H. Chapman, Ph.D., removed deposits in a controlled way and revealed stratified cultural layers containing artifacts spanning thousands of years, creating a layered record of human existence in Missouri. The Missouri Archaeological Society, founded in 1935 to identify archaeological sites and preserve them, helped bring Graham Cave's situation to the university's attention and joined regularly in the excavations from 1949 to 1955, often working in cold and snow during spring and fall seasons. Research resumed in 1966 through a joint effort of the Missouri State Park Board and the University of Missouri at Columbia, when graduate student Walter E. Klippel used the project for his doctoral thesis in anthropology. His work examined how prehistoric people adapted to and used their natural environment during the Dalton-Archaic period, about 10,000 to 3,000 years ago, and new artifacts and methods added information previously uncollected. Geological evidence showed a changing environment that required people to make cultural adjustments to live successfully by hunting and gathering.
