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Danger Cave State Historical Monument

Wendover, United States of America

Danger Cave State Historical Monument

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 o

f human life in the Danger Cave area c. 11,000 BP [9000 BC], but there is much evidence of human life by 9000 BP [7000 BC]. Danger cave was first investigated in the 1930s by Elmer Smith, and excavated in the 1950s under the supervision of Jesse D. Jennings, professor at the University of Utah. Jennings' work at the site was considered ground-breaking due to his exacting standards in excavation and data analysis. Though Jenning's findings eventually gained widespread acceptance, his publications garnered both criticism and support at first. Relating the archaeological evidence from Danger Cave to an ethnographic model, Jennings framed a view of the little-known Great Basin Desert culture which was unknown at the time. 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...

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