The eastern Snake River Plain is a region of cultural and natural edges.  Ethnographically, it forms the northeastern fringe of the Great Basin, but its aboriginal inhabitants were in many ways distinct from their cousins in the Great Basin proper, at least during the past 4,500 years.  The Plain is adjacent to the northern Plateau area of deeply incised mountain ranges and relatively more abundant water (see map of cultural areas adjacent to the Snake River Plain).  The Rocky Mountains to the east formed a psychological barrier, if not a physical one, between the Basin-Plateau and the Plains cultures.

The flora of the INEEL and immediate vicinity includes much of the diversity of plant species adapted to the environmental extremes found within the region.  Nearly 500 plant species have been identified on the INEEL itself, one-third of which have potential uses for humankind.  Many more are relied upon by over 200 seasonal and resident species of vertebrates (Ringe 1995) and hundreds of insect species (Stafford  et al. 1986, Stafford 1987, Youtie et al. 1987).  Information on known and potential uses of some of the region’s ethnobotanically or ethnoecologically important plants (those that have features or inhabit places that are especially attractive to humans) can be found in tabular form at the end of this section.  The remainder of this section will be devoted to assessing the ecological and environmental determinants of human occupation or use of the eastern Snake River Plain through a brief summary of the region’s prehistory and history.  The INEEL itself is central to the area of study and is representative of many, though not all, aspects of the region’s ecology as it pertains to human use.