Craters of the Moon Historic Context Statements

Native Inhabitants of the Craters of the Moon Region:
SUMMARY

The human history of the Snake River Plain began, according to archaeological studies, about 12,000-14,000 years ago in the Upper Snake and Salmon River country. But it was not until some ten thousand years later that the first native groups may have entered Craters of the Moon National Monument. Cultural materials found within the monument suggest that these people were affiliated with the Late Archaic period, a period better known than earlier periods in regional prehistory and one that might "represent prehistoric Shoshonean occupation of the Upper Snake and Salmon River country." Native groups from this period were most active in the northwestern corner of the monument where the greatest selection of natural resources was available. Fewer natives ventured south along the Great Rift, it seems, judging from the scattered and less frequently used occupation sites, though large tracts of vegetation such as the Carey Kipuka attracted more use. Travel in the Craters country was seasonal. Indigenous groups favored the microenvironments of the more resource rich creek valley in the north end of the monument, but they also wandered the length of the Rift, a natural travel route. Historic Shoshoneans seemed to have followed a similar pattern, crossing the lava flows in the north on their seasonal migration to gather camas bulbs, for example. Both archaeologists and explorers have observed an array of Indian materials in the monument. For explorers in the first decades of the twentieth century, this Indian past, however speculative, added to the mysteriousness of the lava country; similarly, stories about Indians and the monument, particularly the legend of the "Lost Valley," fascinated explorers and settlers and drew them to the monument. Efforts to find the valley suggest that people found the monument's Indian past, however real or imagined, an important and attractive element of its history.