McArthur Lake Cultural Discovery project.( Idaho Transportation Department)

It was a standard road project in Northern Idaho. Take US Highway 95 near McArthur Lake and straighten out the curves to make it safer, and also add a small bridge so animals could travel under the roadway instead of over the busy highway.

But when crews began digging on the project, they ran into something unexpected, hundreds of cultural artifacts that may change our idea of how long people have lived in this area of Idaho.

The Idaho Transportation Department brought in a team of experts and partnered with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho to gather and catalog the artifacts, which can now be studied.

Jyl Wheaton-Abraham, an archaeologist and member of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, and Carrie Ann Hewitt, project manager with Idaho Transportation Department joined Idaho Matters to talk about the discovery.