I mean, there were cave dwellers in Europe and Asia too. The richest cave culture finds were in France.

I can attest all threats are considered to the best of one’s ability (minus the “things everyone is willing to risk”), even with everyone’s REI vests/jackets, which is why everyone often takes different routes based on what they’re good at (for example, one is bad with slopes, the other panics at puddles, though they insist this is “fun”). Once a cave even had classic stereotypical radiation in it (I should note one unspoken con of caves is they have an extremely high radon composition, which is natural in caves even though hearing it might be a mind changer). Every cave is different.