The practice of rephrasing to get your word count up really irks me.

"Today, wolves, foxes, and snakes inhabit the cave, but it was once a popular spot for human pastoralists and their domesticated animals."

"Rather, they think it was a convenient spot for herders to stop and provide their flocks with shade and water."

"Even though humans didn’t have a permanent presence in the lava tube, the natural structure provided shelter for people and their herds for thousands of years"

Spoiler alert: it was a shelter for people moving herds between oases, and doesn’t seem to have had a permanent population.

Source paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

The location: https://www.google.com/maps/@25.5879436,39.7629388,1317m/dat...

If you zoom out there are a crapload of lava flows and volcanic craters nearby. A bit to the east there is this landscape: https://www.google.com/maps/@25.6327898,39.9400629,22944m/da...

“Humans sheltered for thousands of years” isn’t quite right. Humans stopped by and used this shelter from time to time for thousands of years.

I went to Cueva de los Verdes in Lanzarote (Canaries) somewhat recently, it's 3.7 miles long (plus another mile under sea level).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_los_Verdes

Seems like it would make a good sietch.

Looks like Jabbas palace.