[...]... audience Finally, throughout the body of this book I describe our research at the Tenderfoot Site I will place this research into a regional context xxxi HUNTER-GATHERER ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE COLORADO HIGH COUNTRY 1 OF THE ARCHAEOLOGY COLORADO S HIGH COUNTRY HISTORY OF RESEARCH This section describes several of the larger, better-reported archaeological projects in Colorado s high country (Figure 1.1) This... contemporaneous with the Paleoindian culture, evidence of which was found in the region, as was an Old Cordilleran Cascade point “There are at least two major traditions present in the area, that of the High Plains big-game hunters of the Llano, Lindenmeier, and Plano cultures as well as that of the Intermontane Tradition as represented by the Old Cordilleran and the regional variant of the Desert Culture, the Uncompahgre... 1948) The goal of excavations undertaken by Wormington and Lister (1956) was the elaboration of the sequence of prehistoric materials and cultures represented in western Colorado After describing the plentiful material taken from the various caves, the authors conclude with interpretations of cultural (social) relationships among the groups in surrounding regions and groups of the Uncompahgre The Archaeology. .. working in the Colorado mountains tend to be an odd lot Some are here by choice; some have been forced here by circumstances beyond their control Some see the mountains as a land of opportunity drawing in prehistoric pioneers Others see the mountains as a periphery of the more important ancient activities that occurred in the Southwest, the Plains, the Great Basin, or elsewhere These attitudes are often... were redeposited alluvial materials, and interpretations other than social relationships with the Desert culture and the High Plains cultures are minimal (Day 1964) Dripping Rocks Cave and Lowell Spring, an open site, (Jennings and Wade 1970) are undated sites 2 Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of the Colorado High Country Fig 1.1 The locations of sites discussed Sites are identified by numbers (1) Dinosaur... points) to reconstruct the relationships of prehistoric occupations in time and space These approaches to research often characterize the work of today’s archaeologists xxx Introduction In this book, I will describe research conducted on open lithic scatters in the mountains of Colorado, concentrating on the Tenderfoot Site near Gunnison The Tenderfoot Site is the scene of several years of slow-paced research... include a summary of the CRM work done in the Upper Gunnison Basin The reader may assume that similar work has been conducted across the larger region I will then examine research problems that archaeologists have defined as important for the region These problems and the way we answer them define our theoretical orientations Here I critique two recent approaches to Colorado archaeology Much of this critique... in the difficult task of theory building It is growth in the latter activity and the integration of theory building into the normal activities of archaeologists that will advance the field of archaeology and gradually transform our humanistic discipline, which demands interpretation in human terms, into a science, which seeks explanations for patterning demonstrable in our data as generated from the. .. Guys? The Nature of Surface Sites and Their Value to Archaeological Research Multiple Occupations The Size of the Prehistoric System as Shown by Obsidian Distributions Projectile-Point Styles Stone Tools Personal Gear Site Furniture Expedient Gear Sequence of Technological Organization Raw Material Use Features Game Drives in the High Country Flora and Fauna Explanation of the Cultural Sequence The Early... within the regional archaeological record He provocatively documents fascinating changes through time suggestive of major shifts in the ways the region was used and in the organizational properties of the systems represented The old view of a static Desert culture, previously said to characterize the region, is not sustained Mark’s work goes far beyond the construction of temporal patterning for the region; . alt="" HUNTER-GATHERER ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE COLORADO HIGH COUNTRY UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO MARK STIGER HUNTER-GATHERER ARCHAEOLOGY COLORADO HIGH COUNTRY OF THE Copyright © 2001 by the University. College of Denver, University of Colorado, University of North- ern Colorado, University of Southern Colorado, and Western State College of Colorado. The paper used in this publication meets the. reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort