Encyclopedia > Rock shelter

  Article Content

Rock shelter

A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. Another term is rockhouse.

Rock shelters form because a rock stratum such as sandstone that's 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. This same phenomenon commonly occurs at waterfalls, and, indeed, many rock shelters are found under waterfalls.

Rock shelters are often important archeologically. Because rock shelters form natural shelters from the weather, primitive humans often used them as living-places, and left behind trash, tools, and other artifacts.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Digital Rights Management

... legal restrictions which copyright status imposes on the owner of a copy of such data, DRM would allow additional restrictions to be imposed solely at the discretion of ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 35.3 ms