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The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds

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<< Text Pages >> Gypsum Cave - Cave or Rock Shelter in United States in The Southwest

Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 18 June 2009  Page Views: 8029

Natural PlacesSite Name: Gypsum Cave
Country: United States
NOTE: This site is 21.379 km away from the location you searched for.

Region: The Southwest Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Las Vegas
Latitude: 36.223925N  Longitude: 114.900228W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4
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Gypsum Cave is a five-room limestone cave in Sunrise Mountain, approximately 12 miles east of Las Vegas. For a twelve-month period, between January 1930 and 1931, noted early archaeologist Mark R. Harrington and a small crew of Native Americans dug through most of the cave's deposit.

Harrington was interested in the cave for its potential to provide evidence of a period in the distant past when it was occupied by both humans and now-extinct mammals, especially the ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastense). Gypsum Cave is significant because it yields artifacts related to early human occupation and information about the region's ancient ecosystem. It is also important to the early history of North American archaeology.

More at the official web site www.onlinenevada.org/gypsum_cave
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Grand Canyon Flight to Las Vegas
Gypsum Facilities East of Las Vegas, Nevada

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"Gypsum Cave" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Re: Gypsum Cave holds important glimpses of the past by Anonymous on Saturday, 24 September 2011
A great place to go if you lose big gambling before you catch your flight home. It's a quiet cave that will allow for some philosophical reflection, located on the outskirts of the Vegas. Gypsum Cave is best known for the remains of the extinct Ice Age ground sloth, excavated in the 1920s.
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Gypsum Cave holds important glimpses of the past by coldrum on Friday, 19 June 2009
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Gypsum Cave holds important glimpses of the past

When he excavated Gypsum Cave in the 1930s, archeologist Mark Harrington concluded that humans and Late Pleistocene animals used the cave around the same time.

It was an astounding theory, because it would have made the cave, which is in the Frenchman Mountains east of Las Vegas, one of the oldest human habitation sites in North America.

More recently technology indicates the humans came much later than Harrington supposed, but the cave is still an important archeological and paleontological site, members of Friends of Gold Butte heard last Tuesday,

Amy Gilreath of Far West Anthropological Research Group spoke to the group about the research she and colleague D. Craig Young carried out in 2004.

Gypsum Cave is about 10 miles east of Las Vegas, and a popular site. It is also adjacent to a utility corridor. When another power line was proposed through the area, the Bureau of Land Management required an assessment of the cave’s value and the risk posed by increased traffic.

The cave, divided into several rooms, is 300 feet long and 120 feet wide. The front part of the cave contained rich evidence of being occupied by humans and prehistoric animals.

Harrington and a small crew of Pit River Indians spent about a year excavating the cave in 1930-31. The archeologist mapped the strata of the cave and found various ages of occupation by people and animals.

One of the prominent features of the cave is a thick layer of ground sloth dung. Harrington found claws and other remains of the ground sloth, as well as evidence of prehistoric horses and camels. Gilreath said the material found in the cave was remarkably well preserved.

Harrington’s surprise discovery was darts and other human artifacts below the ground sloth layer. Since the Shasta ground sloth became extinct about 9,000 years ago, the evidence seemed to indicate human habitation before that,

But Gilreath said when radiocarbon dating technology became available, tests showed the human evidence was not much older than 4,000 years. When she and her colleagues were studying the cave, they noticed a number of packrats scurrying through the jumbled rock, and concluded the rodents moved material from the upper layers to lower layers.

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20090526/DVTONLINE01/90525008/1053/DVTONLINE
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