A rock shelter (also rockhouse , crepuscular cave , bluff shelter , or abri ) is a shallow cave -like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff . In contrast to solutional caves ( karst ), which are often many miles long or wide, rock shelters are almost always modest in size and extent.
7-790: Kutikina Cave (or Kuti Kina or Fraser Cave ) is a rock shelter located on the Franklin River in the South West Wilderness , a World Heritage Area in the Australian state of Tasmania . Originally referred to as Fraser Cave, it was important in the establishment of the antiquity and range of Aboriginal occupation in Tasmania during the Pleistocene . The cave was discovered in 1977 by geomorphology student, Kevin Keirnan and investigated by
14-415: A rock stratum such as sandstone that is resistant to erosion and weathering has formed a cliff or bluff, but a softer stratum, more subject to erosion and weathering, lies just below the resistant stratum, and thus undercuts the cliff. In arid areas, wind erosion ( Aeolian erosion ) can be an important factor in rockhouse formation. In most humid areas, the most important factor in rockhouse formation
21-479: A team led by archeologists Don Ranson and Rhys Jones in the 1980s. Excavations were undertaken in 1981 by Jones and Kiernan at the height of the protests over the proposed Franklin Dam construction. The cave has important archaeological deposits relating to human occupation in the Pleistocene , with evidence of wallaby hunting at a time the landscape was an open tundra and it was the most southerly human occupation in
28-510: Is frost spalling , where the softer, more porous rock underneath is pushed off, tiny pieces at a time, by frost expansion from water frozen in the pores. Erosion from moving water is seldom a significant factor. Many rock shelters are found under waterfalls . Rock shelters are often important archaeologically . Because rock shelters form natural shelters from the weather, prehistoric humans often used them as living-places, and left behind debris, tools, and other artifacts . In mountainous areas
35-659: The marrow . Kutikina played an important role in the Franklin Dam controversy . It was initially named "Fraser Cave" by Kieran, after the then prime minister, Malcolm Fraser , with the aim of drawing attention to the significance of the Tasmanian wilderness and Franklin River , which were under threat from a dam proposed by the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission . Rock shelter Rock shelters form because
42-410: The shelters can also be important for mountaineers . Transhumant nomads, people who move with their livestock - often from lower permanent winter residences in the valleys to higher summer pastures - frequently build semi-permanent camps, often of rocks. In western Connecticut and eastern New York , many rock shelters are known by the colloquialism "leatherman caves", as they were inhabited by
49-513: The world during the last ice age . The archaeological evidence showed that this was one of the richest artefact deposits ever found, in Tasmania and in Australia. over 250,000 fragments of bone and 75,000 stone artefacts were recovered from a relatively small excavation area comprising only 1% of the artefact-bearing deposit in the cave. The bone fragments were predominantly Bennets Wallaby long bones which had been split along their length to extract
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