The specific tool types found at different elevations and in different time periods allow researchers to trace the expansion of human use of the high country over time.

High-altitude bison hunting is one of the most studied aspects of Rocky Mountain prehistoric archaeology.

Large communal hunts, sometimes involving driving bison over cliff edges or into enclosures, left substantial archaeological deposits at specific topographic features that were used repeatedly over centuries or millennia.

The evidence for these hunts — broken bone, stone tools, fire hearths — documents organized, large-scale cooperation among hunting communities that extends back several thousand years in some Rocky Mountain locations.

The Hourglass Cave man predates many of these well-documented hunting sites.