[2] Located in Mill Canyon of the Toquima Range in the Monitor Valley of central Nevada, Gatecliff Rockshelter has an elevation of 7,750 feet (2,360 m).

[4] Full scale excavations occurred at Gatecliff Rockshelter for about seven field seasons in which nearly 33 feet (10 m) of sediments were exposed for a well-defined stratigraphic sequence.

[4] The well-preserved artifacts and undisturbed sediments at Gatecliff Rockshelter provides data and information have been applied to a range of research topics.

David Hurst Thomas discovered Gatecliff Rockshelter in June 1970 following his first field season in the Reese River Valley and ancient Lake Tonopah.

[3][5] Thomas also conducted systematic settlement surveys of the Monitor Valley in Central Nevada in efforts to study prehistoric ecology, subsistence patterns, and chronological sequences of the Great Basin.

[5] At the dinner, Thomas spoke with the waitress's husband, Gale Peer, a mining geologist with over 40 years of experience in the Great Basin.

[3] The paintings were human figures in red and yellow as well as cryptic motifs in black and white on the ceiling and rear wall.

[3][4] After the initial discovery in 1970, Thomas and a crew from the University of California Davis began an extensive, large scale excavation.

[3][4] The initial objective at Gatecliff Rockshelter, Nevada was establishing and dating a stratigraphic sequence that could be applied regionally in the Great Basin area; this would require a vertical excavation strategy.

[4] The vertical excavation revealed a pattern of periodic floods that filled the rock shelter with silt and, when dried out, people exploited it again.

The new objective with a horizontal excavation at the rock shelter, the previous being chronology, emphasized the reconstruction pre-historic activities and events that occurred at the site.

[4] In 1975, over a period of ten days, the crew removed a massive chert roof fall that covered half of the rear of the rock shelter.

The lack of erosion and episodic deposits of sediments due to water provided a well-defined and intact cultural sequence that could be applied to the Great Basin area.

[10] Due to the nature of the rock shelter and the lack of taphonomic knowledge, Grayson argued that the processes that produced this massive collection of bones could not be determined.

These small mammals include rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, gophers, rats, voles, mice, dogs, and coyotes; only two of the taxa found at Gatecliff are absent from the present Toquima-Monitor area.

[13] The incised stones at Gatecliff Rockshelter include simple to complex motifs of lines, rows, chevrons, circles, and striations.

[14] According to James M. Adovasio, the preference for willow, despite its sporadic distribution across Monitor Valley, comes from its durability, flexibility, consistent thickness of the bark, and the lack of lateral twigs.

[16] The rock art at Gatecliff Rockshelter includes white, red, yellow, and orange pigments; black was not used on the walls but decorated small stones.