The region is rich with evidence of long human occupation — caves and rock shelters that preserve archaeological materials across thousands of years, open sites along ancient lake margins, and the accumulated evidence of generations of people who knew this desert landscape with a precision that modern visitors can barely imagine.

Lovelock Cave, not far from Spirit Cave, yielded remarkable preserved materials including tule duck decoys — woven, feathered hunting decoys that were placed in the marshes to attract waterfowl — that are among the most famous objects of prehistoric Great Basin material culture.

The textiles and other organic materials from Lovelock Cave provided evidence of sophisticated craft traditions extending back several thousand years.

Danger Cave in Utah, just outside the Great Basin’s Nevada portion, produced evidence of human occupation extending back approximately 11,000 years — making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in the Great Basin.