This is where most of the excavations were placed and the majority of the artifacts were found. The overhang is about 131 feet (40 meters) wide, and measures 65.6 feet (20 meters) between the dripline and the rear wall in the northern half of the shelter. : 7 Physical Characteristics įranktown Cave is the largest rockshelter documented in the Palmer Divide. Near the rock shelter, spring-fed streams traverse a land of scrub oak, plains grassland and open ponderosa pine forest. Wall Mountain tuff rhyolite from the Oligocene age for flake tools.Projectile points and small bifaces were made from microcrystalline rock. Microcrystalline rock in white chalcedony, light yellow and caramel that was formed from petrified wood during the Paleocene period.The area provides two key raw materials that were used for tool-making: The cave was created when water eroded the soft, water soluble layers of Dawson Arkose formation through seeps below a thick, hard shelf of Castle Rock Conglomerate. Cherry Creek flows off of the Palmer Divide northwest to the South Platte River in Denver. Monument Hill, is the highest point of the divide at about 7,500 feet (2,300 m).

: 6–8 Palmer Divide is an east-west ridge in central Colorado that runs perpendicular to the Rocky Mountains between Denver and Colorado Springs and east to Limon, Colorado.

Situated on Palmer Divide, which separates the South Platte River basin from the Arkansas River basin, Franktown Cave is its largest documented rock shelter in the area. It is more than 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in elevation.

3.4.3 Artifact counts and description by categoryįranktown Cave is a rock shelter 198 feet (60 m) above Willow Creek, a tributary of Cherry Creek that flows into the South Platte River at Denver, Colorado, 25 miles to the north.

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