They are visible today because the lake level has dropped, but they preserve the record of a very different hydrological past.

The ancient lake terraces — horizontal benches cut into the hillsides around the ancient Lahontan Basin — record the shorelines of the lake at different stages of its history.

They are visible from many points in northwestern Nevada, if you know what to look for: parallel lines on the hillsides, each one marking a period when the lake stood at a specific elevation, each one potentially bearing archaeological sites of the people who lived along those ancient shorelines.

Spirit Cave itself sits on one of these ancient hillsides — elevated above what was once the lake margin, positioned with the specific relationship to the ancient water that the people who used the cave chose deliberately.