Danger Cave in Utah, Fishbone Cave in Nevada, and dozens of other sites have yielded preserved organic materials — including textiles, cordage, basketry, food remains, and clothing — from multiple periods of prehistoric occupation.

In these cases, the caves were used for habitation or for specific resource-related activities, and the evidence for their use includes a range of material that documents daily life rather than a single dramatic event.

The preserved materials from these sites have contributed enormously to understanding the material culture and subsistence strategies of early Basin-Plateau peoples.

Hourglass Cave does not fit this pattern.

It was not a habitation site — there is no evidence of sustained occupation, no accumulation of domestic debris, no evidence of the kind of repeated activity that characterizes habitation sites.