Paisley Caves: Oregon's Oldest Known Humans

Wander into the barren and rugged terrain of Oregon, where Paisley Caves emerge - eight ghoulish pits hacked into basalts. These pits, akin to an autopsy's aftermath, could reveal the origins of life in North America. Perched at around 4,520 feet above sea level, they elude any cloying biblical whispers. One of the pits MAY offer archaeological clues about the oldest human presence in North America. The pits face west, molded by Pleistocene-era waves from Summer Lake in the Miocene and Pliocene eras.

Basalts merged with soft volcanic tuffs and breccias formed the pits. Luther Cressman inspected the pits in the 1930s, but recent excavations and analyses since 2002 have unearthed fresh mysteries, such as subfossil human waste bits holding the oldest DNA clues about human habitation in North America, relics, and animal remnants. The DNA was dated to 14,300 BP or roughly 12,000 BC and the pits were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons