Lime Hills Cave 1 is located at the eastern extension of the Lime Hills in the Door Mountain Range of southwestern Alaska. Excavations in 1993 and 1995, under the direction of Robert E. Ackerman, revealed a terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene (ca. 10,400—8,700 ¹⁴C B.P.) Denali complex occupation, a very sparse late Holocene Arctic Small Tool tradition component, and deeper strata without evidence of a human presence. His excavations also recovered over 30,000 faunal remains.

The abundance of small and medium-sized mammal remains from the site provides rare data for addressing research questions relevant to understanding the past environments of interior southwest Alaska from the latter portion of the Wisconsin Interstadial to present. Of particular significance are interstratigraphic changes in mammalian species composition indicating the site's Denali complex occupation occurred during a transition from a xeric-steppe tundra to a predominantly boreal forest habitat. This was a productive environment with greater species diversity, a more complex vegetation mosaic, and more niches available for mammalian taxa, than during earlier and later periods represented by the site's faunal assemblage.

There is only sparse evidence of human modification of the faunal remains. Body part and surface modification attribute analysis of caribou and size class I mammal skeletal elements suggests medium to large sized carnivores as accumulators of the majority of the caribou remains, and owls and canids as the most likely taphonomic agents depositing small mammal remains in the cave.