Hogup Cave facts for kids

Hogup Cave is a special limestone cave in Utah. It has two main rooms. This cave is a very important place for studying prehistoric life in the Great Basin area. Scientists have learned a lot about ancient people from what they found here.

Where is Hogup Cave?

Hogup Cave is located on the side of Hogup Mountain. This is in the Great Salt Lake Desert. The Great Salt Lake is about ten miles east of the cave.

Hogup Mountain has three main plant zones. These zones depend on the soil, height, and how much water there is.

• The lowest zone has plants like pickleweed and salt grass. People found water wells here. This suggests the cave's ancient residents might have gotten water from this area.
• The next zone is covered mostly by sagebrush and shadscale.
• The highest zone has juniper trees. The very top of Hogup Mountain is 6,847 feet high.

Discovering the Past: Excavations

Professor C. Melvin Aikens led the digging at Hogup Cave. He worked with his team in 1967 and 1968. Their main goal was to learn how people's lives changed over time. They also wanted to solve mysteries about the history of the Great Salt Lake region.

They found layers of dirt and items that had built up over 8,000 years. These layers showed human activity from 6400 B.C. to A.D. 1850. Professor Aikens wrote a detailed book about their findings in 1970.

They found almost 10,000 artifacts. These included bones, wood, animal hides, ropes, and tools made of stone. They also found clay, pottery, and even ancient human waste called coprolites. Hair, feathers, and fur were also discovered.

Layers of Time: Stratigraphy

When scientists dug into the cave, they found 16 main layers. These layers were like pages in a history book. Each layer showed how the cave was used at different times. Professor Aikens noticed that people living in the cave sometimes changed these layers. They moved things around to make their living space better.

Here are some examples of what they found in different layers:

• Layer 1 was the oldest, right on the bedrock. It was thin and dusty.
• Layer 4 had plant material and animal hair. A small, bowl-shaped pit was found here. It was full of ash and charcoal, suggesting it was a fire pit.
• Layer 5 also had plant material and animal hair. A lot of human waste was found here. This suggests it was a special area for certain activities.
• Layer 6 and Layer 7 had a lot of bat droppings, called guano. Bats still live in the cave today.
• Layer 10 showed signs of a large fire. This fire likely burned out of control.
• Layer 14 had more signs of fire. This suggests the cave's contents accidentally burned.

How People Used the Cave

Professor Aikens identified four main ways people used the cave.

• Hearths: Many layers had signs of fires, called hearths. These were places where people cooked or kept warm.
• Pits: One pit was found that looked like a bowl. It held old items but showed no signs of fire.
• Sleeping Areas: Thin beds of grass or twigs were found. Professor Aikens thought these might have been used for sleeping or sitting.
• Changing the Cave: People also moved dirt and rocks to make the cave bigger or flatter. This shows they made small changes to their living space.

Overall, people living in Hogup Cave made simple changes. They didn't build many complex structures.

Tools and Items Found

Pottery

Scientists found different types of pottery pieces in the cave. The first pottery appeared in Layer 12. It became more common in later layers. This suggests that different groups of people used the cave at the same time.

Clay Items

They found six small pieces of unfired clay. Some looked like parts of human-like figures. Others were shaped like cylinders or L-shapes. They also found flat pieces of clay with crushed stones and plant fibers. Two lumps of clay had marks from coiled baskets.

Stone Tools

A total of 325 complete or nearly complete stone arrowheads and spear points were found. These tools are well-known from the Great Basin area. Scientists compared them to tools from a nearby cave called Danger Cave. They grouped the tools into four main types. This showed that different groups of people used similar tools over time.

Other stone tools included:

• Blades: Thin, sharp stones without handles.
• Choppers: Heavier, rougher stones with cutting edges.
• Scrapers: Stones with blunt edges used for scraping.
• Spokeshaves: Stones with notches, possibly for shaping wood.
• Drills: Tools used for making holes. These were found in almost all layers.

Ground Stone Tools

This group included 922 items. These tools were shaped by grinding.

• Shaft Smoothers: Stones with grooves, likely used to smooth wooden shafts for arrows or spears.
• Grooved Stones: Stones with shallow grooves.
• Milling Stones: Large stones used for grinding seeds. Some were oval with a dip, others were rectangular. Traces of red and black paint were found on some.
• Manos: Smaller hand stones used with milling stones to grind seeds. They came in different shapes and sizes.
• Pestles: Long, tapered stones used for pounding. One pestle also showed signs of being used as a mano.
• Pounding/Abrading Stones: Stones with flat, worn surfaces and battered edges. Some had traces of red paint.
• Tabular Stones: Thin, flat stones. Some had designs carved into them.

Tools from Bone, Antler, Horn, and Shell

About 269 items were made from animal parts.

• Awls: Pointed tools made from antelope, sheep, or deer bones. These were used for piercing materials.
• Pendants: Ornaments made from elk teeth. They had holes for hanging. Since no elk bones were found, the elk were likely hunted elsewhere.
• Whistles: A broken bone tube might have been a whistle.
• Sheep Horn Wrenches: Two mountain sheep horns had holes with wear marks. These were likely used to straighten wooden shafts.

Hide Artifacts

A total of 719 items made from animal hides were found.

• Moccasins: 23 moccasins were found.
  • Hock Moccasins: Three were made from bison hide. They used the natural shape of the animal's leg for the heel.
  • Fremont Moccasins: Sixteen were made from deer or antelope skin. They were similar to other moccasins from the Fremont culture.
  • Hogup Moccasins: Four had a unique design. They were made from one piece of hide folded over the foot.
• Fur Robes: Two rectangular robes made of fur were found.

Feathers

Three types of feathers were found. Some had their barbs (the soft parts) cut short. Others were wrapped with thin strips of animal tendon. The purpose of these worked feathers is unknown. Many unworked feathers were also found. The grey-crowned rosy finch was the most common bird found.

Worked Plant Fibers

Scientists found 46 pads made of shredded sagebrush and 3 from grass stems. These fibers were tightly matted. They might have been used as menstrual pads, but this is not certain.

Textiles

160 pieces of basketry were found. This is one of the largest and best-preserved collections from the Great Basin. Scientists identified different weaving styles. Coiled basketry was found to be older and more common than twined basketry in Hogup Cave.

Wooden Artifacts

491 pieces of worked wood and reed were recovered. Many finished items were related to hunting. Digging sticks showed that people also gathered plants for food. Small gaming pieces suggest people had leisure time.

They found parts of atlatl darts and throwing boards. An atlatl is a tool used to throw darts with more force. Later, they found parts of bows and arrows. This shows a big change in hunting tools over time.

• From Layers 1 to 8, only atlatl and dart items were found.
• From Layers 12 to 16, only bow and arrow items were found.
• Layers 9 and 10 had a mix of both weapons.

How Life Changed Over Time

Scientists identified four main periods of human life at Hogup Cave. They called these Units I through IV. Each unit had different types of tools and showed different ways of living.

Unit I (6400–1250 B.C.)

This period is defined by Layers 1 through 8. People lived a "Desert culture" lifestyle. They gathered seeds, especially pickleweed. They also hunted small and large animals like pronghorn, deer, and bison. Milling stones were used to process seeds. Hunting tools included spear points and darts. Dog bones were found, suggesting dogs might have been a food source. The cave was used a lot during this time.

Unit II (1250 B.C.–A.D. 400)

This period is defined by Layers 9 through 11. There was a big change from Unit I. Fewer types of tools were found. This might mean people used the cave less often. The use of milling stones for grinding seeds went down. This could be because the lake moved away, making pickleweed harder to find. Hunting bison and pronghorn became more important. New hunting tools like bows and arrows appeared. Basketry was less common, matching the reduced use of pickleweed.

Unit III (A.D. 400–1350)

This period is defined by Layers 12 through 14. Milling stones were still not used much. Studies of ancient human waste showed less pickleweed. Sagebrush became an important food source. Shelled corn was found, but no cobs. This means corn was brought to the cave from somewhere else. Bison became the main large animal hunted. Many small stone arrowheads were found. Pottery appeared for the first time. Red-painted bone pieces and Fremont-style moccasins became common.

Unit IV (A.D. 1350–1850)

This period is defined by Layers 15 and 16. There was a big drop in the number of tools found. This suggests a major change in how people lived in Utah. Milling stones were still rare. Sagebrush and grasses were the main plant foods. Hunting remained important, with bison and pronghorn being the most hunted animals. Hide items like rabbit fur robes were found. Pottery pieces were still present, but fewer were from the Fremont culture.

What We Learned from Hogup Cave

Professor Aikens explained that Hogup Cave was just one place where ancient people lived. They likely moved around during different seasons. We don't know where they went during the rest of the year. He said that to fully understand how these ancient cultures lived, we need to find and dig up other sites where they did different activities. Hogup Cave helps us understand a piece of their lives.

Selected Papers and Books

• Aikens, C. Melvin (1970). Hogup Cave. University of Utah Press.
• Byers, David A. and Hill, Brenda L. (2009). “Pronghorn Dental Age Profiles and Holocene Hunting Strategies at Hogup Cave, Utah”, American Antiquity, 74(2), p. 299-321.
• Fry, Gary F. (1976). “Analysis of Prehistoric Coprolites from Utah”, University of Utah Anthropological Papers, No. 97. The University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 45pp.
• Hockett, Bryan S. (1994). “A Descriptive Reanalysis of the Leporid Bones from Hogup Cave, Utah”, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 16(1).
• Jennings, Jesse D. (1957). “Danger Cave”, University of Utah Anthropological Papers, No. 27. The University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City.