WASHINGTON: In 2004, a National Park Service (NPS) worker found the entrance to a cave in South Dakota’s Wind Cave National Park. Although researchers believe that the cave could be incredibly old and deep, the location of the entrance has been kept secret for more than a decade. Even today, with excavation of the cave’s sediments underway, the location remains a closely guarded secret.
The secrecy has kept amateur spelunkers and other adventure seekers away and allowed the NPS to mount a proper, scientific excavation of the site. Already the exploration has yielded hundreds of bones dating back as far as 11,000 years. Included in the haul are the bones of three living species not previously known to live in the region.
Bones of the pika, which lives in cool mountain climates, as well as the platygonus, an extinct relative of the peccary and pine martin have come from the cave entrance with much left to excavate.
East Tennessee State University professor Jim Mead, the leader of the excavation, told the Washington Post that he expects to find 100,000 bones before the end of the summer.
Because of the direction and speed of winds coming from the cave entrance, researchers believe that it could be very deep. It could even connect, through a blocked or unexplored passage, to Wind Cave one-third of a mile away.
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