The ceramics from Haystack Rockshelter are mainly large, thin-walled, cordmarked jars with distinctive angular shoulders. Native peoples cooked the seeds of native cultigens, such as goosefoot, maygrass, and sunflower. in these jars.
A small group of people, perhaps a nuclear or extended family, likely used the site. While there, they collected and processed plants and made chipped stone tools. Based on the types of plants recovered, archaeologists think Native people occupied the rockshelter from the middle of the summer through the end of the fall.
Diverse, normally perishable remains were recovered from Haystack. They included leaves, split cane basket fragments, paleofeces (ancient human feces), feathers, cordage, leather, and egg shells. These types of artifacts are only preserved within very dry rockshelters or in cool caves, such as Mammoth Cave in south-central Kentucky.