Photo gallery: Utahns offered rare peek inside Danger Cave, human history

I have never heard of Danger Cave. Have you, ATS??

Danger Cave, and the nearby Jukebox Cave, sits roughly 5 miles northeast of Wendover. The twin caves were gated shut in the late 1990s, leaving only sporadic access to what Utah State Parks resources manager Justina Parsons-Bernstein describes as "one of the most important archaeological sites in all of North America."

That's because buried within Danger Cave lies evidence of some of Utah's oldest human inhabitants, with artifacts recovered dating back more than 11,000 years to when the waters of Lake Bonneville first receded to expose the banquet hall-sized space.

For this cave to be so important to American history and even World history one would think that this place got a little more attention than it does. The fact that it's open only twice a year doesn't help either. This is an important part of human history....this is UTAH's Grand Canyon so to speak. I know this must be an effort to preserve it but come on....What says ATS?



www.sltrib.com...

a reply to: lostbook

S and F for you and thank you for posting that.

Danger cave is a very important early American site,

Danger Cave is a North American Archaeological site located in the Bonneville Basin of western Utah around the Great Salt Lakes region, that features artifacts of the Desert Culture from c. 9000 BC until c. 500 AD. Through carbon-14 dating, it has been determined that there is very little evidence of human life in the Danger Cave area c. 11,000 BP [9000 BC], but there is much evidence of human life by 9,000 BP [8000 BC].

And

The extremely dry cave had created an ideal storage condition that preserved a variety of artifacts from beetle wings to textiles and human paleofeces. They also found leather scraps, pieces of string, nets of twine, coarse fabric, basket fragments, and bone and wood tools such as knives, weapons, and millstones.[3] In total, excavations have produced over 2,500 chipped-stone artifacts and over 1,000 grinding stones.[4] The excavation also yielded identifiable fragments of 68 plant species that still grow today within ten miles of the cave as well as the bones of many species of animals.[5]

The data collected from the cave suggested that the Desert Culture had a sparse population, with small social units numbering no more than 25 to 30 people. The focus on survival prevented the inhabitants from building permanent structures, developing complicated rituals, or amassing extensive personal property. The Desert Culture persisted for thousands of years despite the hardships they faced, and eventually became the basis for other early Utah cultures such as the Fremont.

en.m.wikipedia.org...


That part of Basin and Ranges in Utah has been very productive as far as preservation of ancient sites.

I have some papers on pdf about the people of this area I'll try to dig them up and share them.


Here is a thread I started about another cave not to far from there, on the north side of salt lake,
www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: punkinworks10

Thank you for your input.

a reply to: lostbook

Maybe they are concerned about the transmission of White Nose Syndrome in the bat population?

Just a thought, it has only been tracked as far west as Michigan and Wisconsin so far though...

Wikipedia

There are caves locally that we used to frequent years ago. They are no longer "open to the public".
The state bought the land.

It stinks but, I can see their reasoning somewhat.

Nice find! S&F!

Older sites like these have helped push back the "Clovis first" theory and helped us learn that America's been populated by humans a lot earlier than 12,000 years ago.

(although I note that some of the rock art appears to date from the 1800's (horses and riders.)

a reply to: lostbook

Interesting stuff! I always wonder, in cases like this, if it isn't a matter of concealing that there are older remains around, that totally contradict what has been taught for so long about humans in the Americas. When there is no mention of bones, I wonder even more.