Multimedia Collection
Secrets Underground: Archaeologist Patty Jo Watson
(Discovering Women series)
VHS
60 minutes
Q130 .D51 1995 tape 4
4,500 years ago, barefoot adventurers crawled through dark, narrow passages deep inside the earth, exploring their world with remarkable courage and skill. In this profile, archaeologist Patty Jo Watson follows their path and views their footprints with awe. "It's one of the times when you can see the past before you," Watson says, "It's about the closest you can get to a prehistoric person." Watson's work in caves has uncovered intriguing new information about the earliest North Americans, and has led to a re-evaluation of our beliefs about them. Watson also travels to a rural Chinese village and high into the Rocky Mountains as part of her study of early human activity, and she talks about her provocative new theory about gender roles in early societies. But the key to her work lies deep in the caves of Kentucky and Tennessee, where research can often be hazardous. On one trip in this program a fellow caver collapses in hypoglycemic shock, and Watson and her team must scramble to alert rescue forces and guide them in, two miles underground.
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