Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

I went to check out a pair of twin 'caves' that are documented habitation sites.  Alice Hunt estimated occupation as “sporadically” from Death Valley II culture (as long ago as 7000 years) to pre-WWI prospectors.  All evidence of Native American habitation was removed when the caves were excavated in the 1950's.  Both caves are approximately 15ft wide and 10ft deep.  The walled cave was dug out to an interior height of about 8ft (as measured in the 50's) and the other was about 6ft tall. 

I often spend a LOT of time hunting for these types of caves.  Sometimes you're looking for one cave in a whole hill of caves.  This time it was… rather obvious. 


Some later trash left behind by prospectors.


Although prospectors don't usually have bottles quite this fancy.  If a turn of the century prospector brought a date out here, I'd really love to hear that story. 


The (slightly) smaller cave. 





There's still a few pieces of pretty chert flake remaining. 


The walled cave.  The wall was likely erected by prospectors.  The biggest evidence for that is that they used some of the mortero stones in the building of the wall. 








Homey.  If a bit Hanta-haunted. 











One of the mortero stones used in the wall.