As one of the main forms of traditional earth buildings,cave dwellings contain rich climate response strategy. Therefore,taking a cliff-side cave dwellings in the west area of Henan as the research object,thermal responsive performance under extreme climate conditions was analyzed by monitoring,field measurement and theoretical anaylsis. Results show that the cliff-type design can effectively improve thermal and humidity environment. The indoor air temperature fluctuated between 23.2 ~ 28 ℃ in summer,and 11.3 ~ 12.8 ℃ in winter; However,the air relative humidity of cave dwelling is relatively high in summer,the average humidity is 84.6%. Enhancing natural ventilation is the main direction of regenerative design in future. Compared with the cliff-side cave dwelling,the average temperature of brick building is 4.5 ℃ higher in summer,and 9.6 ℃ lower in winter. Its surrounding structures thermal performance index is much bigger than brick building. These results provide a theoretical basis for the model optimization of vernacular houses and the development of sustainable buildings.