The shelter from wind and cold that the cave architecture provided would have been particularly valuable in the coldest months.

But the caves were not necessarily used exclusively in winter.

The plant food evidence from the coprolites includes materials that would have been available in summer and fall — seed crops that ripen in late summer, for example, or plant parts that are harvested in the fall before frost destroys them.

The temporal span of occupation at the site, documented across many coprolites from multiple periods, likely reflects multiple seasons and multiple years of use rather than a single extended occupation.

The pattern of seasonal mobility associated with the Paisley site would have connected it to a network of other sites across the northern Great Basin — other caves, other rock shelters, other open-air camps — that formed a seasonal circuit through which a community moved over the course of a year.