The Hourglass Cave man exists in a broader context of human occupation of the Rocky Mountain region that both preceded and followed his time.

The Rocky Mountains were not among the first environments in the Americas to be occupied.

The initial peopling of the hemisphere appears to have proceeded primarily along coastal routes and through lower-elevation corridors, with the high-mountain terrain representing a secondary area of human expansion that followed the establishment of populations in lower and more productive environments.

Evidence for human occupation of the Colorado Rockies above treeline extends back several thousand years before the Hourglass Cave man, though direct skeletal evidence from this early period is extremely rare.

The most common evidence consists of stone tools — projectile points, scrapers, and other implements — found in surface and stratified contexts at high-altitude sites.