In 2015, scientists released the results of DNA research conducted on a set of remains from Washington state popularly known as Kennewick Man. That ancient American lived more than 9,000 years ago, close to the era of Nevada’s Spirit Cave Man.
The term “Spirit Cave Man” refers to the partially-mummified remains of a Paleo-Indian who lived near what is now Fallon, Nevada, about 10,600 years ago – the oldest mummified remains ever found in North America.
The Donner Party was a group of families that set off overland for California in ox-drawn covered wagons in 1846. They planned a two-thousand-mile, five-month walk across the continent to new opportunities, but were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the terrible winter of 1846-47. About half died, and some of the survivors resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Their story has become a tragic icon of the American West.
