The specific sites used as habitation locations changed as some water sources disappeared and others became more important.

But the fundamental pattern of mobile, adaptive exploitation of a diverse resource base in an arid landscape — the pattern documented in the Paisley coprolites — continued and diversified through the subsequent millennia.

What the Caves Still Hold

The Paisley Caves research program is not finished.

The caves contain sediment that has not yet been excavated, materials that have not yet been subjected to the full range of modern analytical methods, and questions that have not yet been asked in forms that current methods can address.

Future research directions might include the application of environmental DNA analysis to the cave sediment — the extraction and analysis of DNA from the sediment matrix itself, rather than from specific identifiable specimens like coprolites.