By: Dennis Cassinelli
Western Nevada has many caves that were formed during the Pleistocene age between 2.58 million and 11,700 years ago. It was during this time, that ancient Lake Lahontan was formed in western Nevada where the water levels were much higher than today. Ancient Lake Lahontan filled many of the valleys we see here today. The Black Rock desert was a lake where mammoths roamed the shores and Winnemucca Lake was filled with water and fish.
If you drive across the desert of western Nevada today, you will notice that many of the hills and and mountains have distinct horizontal lines on them that were formed from wave action of the Lake Lahontan water as it receded. Often this wave action lasted long enough to create caves where the water flowed in and out bringing soil out that created caves.
This wave action of Lake Lahontan is how Lovelock Cave, Spirit Cave, Ocala Cave, Hidden Cave, Humboldt Cave, Guano Cave, Horseshoe Cave and other caves and rock shelters were formed around the shores of the lake. The largest and most visited of Nevada caves is Lovelock Cave. This cave has a visitor viewing platform so visitors can see this large site unescorted, where hundreds of artifacts were recovered and are on display in museums.
At Spirit Cave east of Fallon, Nevada, in 1940, a husband and wife team of archaeologists named Wheeler were employed to search some of the many caves in the area and report their findings to the Bureau of Land Management. What they discovered inside this cave was human remains, including a partially mummified man very well preserved with hair on his head and flesh that was mummified in the dry cave. It was determined the man had been buried in the cave about 12,000 years ago.
This person became known as the Spirit Cave Man. I have written a prehistoric novel called “Legends of Spirit Cave” about this person telling how the Spirit Cave people likely lived, the medicines they used, the food they ate and the travels they may have taken during their life here in Nevada. This book is available on my website @ cassinelli-books@charter.net
Across the deserts of western Nevada, there is an interesting formation called “Tufa”. This is a white
carbonate formation that forms on rocks that are under water for a long period of time. Many of the caves in Nevada have remnants of tufa around the caves, confirming that the caves were once under water when wave action of Lake Lahontan formed the caves.
There are petroglyphs in the Winnemucca Lake area that are carved into tufa rock that had been submerged in Lake Lahontan water thousands of years ago. The tufa had dried algae on it that was organic and could be carbon dated at several thousand years old. Stone petroglyphs are not organic and cannot be dated. The ones at Winnemucca Lake have algae in them and therefore, they can bee dated. They are between 10,500 and 14,800 years old. This makes them the oldest petroglyphs in North America.
Lehman caves in the Great Basin National Park were discovered in the 1880’s by Absolom Lehman after feeling cool air coming from the ground, The caves have an amazing array of colorful stalactites and stalagmites. Tours are available by contacting the Great Basin National Park
This article is by Dayton Author and Historian, Dennis Cassinelli. You can order his books at a discount on his blog at denniscassinelli.com Just click on ”order books”
