IDAHO FALLS – A few miles west of Idaho Falls lie three caves and an archaeological legacy that Suzann Henrikson can’t let go.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist has dedicated years of her life to convincing others that digging in the caves for clues about the Snake River Plain’s earliest inhabitants is worth the money.
“It’s too important to ignore,” she said. “We need to investigate human history because we keep making the same mistakes over and over again.”
Henrikson and her peers say the Wasden caves, named for the first white owner of the land, make up the oldest archaeological site in Idaho. Excavators have found bones from all types of animals in the caves, as small as mice and large as a mammoth, as well as prehistoric spear and arrow points and fragments of pottery.