Trinchera Cave Archeological District, Archaeological site in Las Animas County, Colorado, US.

Trinchera Cave is a rock shelter about 30 by 8 metres beneath an 8-metre overhang, set in a canyon of Trinchera Creek in Las Animas County, Colorado. It sits on Purgatoire shale with surrounding Dakota formation sandstone, and sandstone-block walls estimated at 1.5 metres thick once stood inside. A creek runs next to the shelter.

The site was discovered in 1947 during an aerial survey and shows occupation spanning from 1000 BC to 1749. The layered deposits reveal the arrival of different cultures and their successive use of the same location over millennia.

The Sopris phase level at the rock shelter held Santa Fe black-on-white and Taos gray pottery, pointing to trade with Upper Rio Grande pueblo peoples between roughly AD 1100 and 1350. Above it lay remains of a jacal structure with Antelope Creek phase artifacts and Stamper cord-marked pottery, evidence of Plains contacts.

The rock shelter lies on State Trust Lands in the Trinchera Creek canyon, east of Interstate 25 in Las Animas County. Its overhang keeps the shelter cool in summer and sun warms it in winter. Access rules for State Trust Lands should be confirmed before any visit, and the creek runs directly beside the shelter.

The cave was found in 1947 by Willard Louden, a historian, geologist and rancher, who spotted it while flying over the area; with Ruth Henritze he later dug there for artifacts. The Louden-Henritze Archeology Museum at Trinidad State Junior College was dedicated to them in 1984.