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Important for understanding the Archaic Tradition in western Colorado is the fact <br />that 1) three climatic zones were exploited: the cool desert, the temperate, and the boreal; <br />and, 2) multiple biotic zones were utilized: the desert shrub (<4,600 ft.), the pinyon-juniper <br />belt (4,600 - 6,500 ft.), the pine-oak belt (6,500 - 8,000 ft.), the fir-aspen belt (8,000 - 9,500 <br />ft.), and the spruce-fir belt (9,500 - 10,500 ft.). Most sites occur in the pinyon-juniper zone <br />but quantitative differentiation between it and the other zones is difficult to assess given the <br />current state of the data. Clearly, at various times, ecological niches in these areas provided <br />conditions stable enough for maintenance of a sedentary or semi-sedentary lifestyle. As <br />continental environmental changes occurred throughout the Holocene, regional fluctuations <br />were also felt, and the details of various cultural adaptations shifted as well. <br />A cultural-ecological model is posited and termed the Archaic lifeway, which <br />incorporated broad spectrum hunting and gathering and the concept that co-traditions of <br />diverse ethnic groups occupied and utilized different ecological facets of the same broad <br />geographical area in differing ways. The socio-economic organization was conceptualized <br />as consisting of band level societies focused on the household unit, with mobility as the <br />adaptive strategy, and operating along an annual, seasonally based continuum from forager <br />to collector, with subsistence and settlement strategies logistically organized on ecological <br />economic zones that radiated out from the household residential base. Seasonal movements <br />were primarily elevationally determined, based upon the availability and fruition of floral <br />resources in concert with movements of large mammal herbivores (family Cervidae, Bos, <br />Orvis and/or Antilocapridae) from winter to summer ranges and back again. <br />As expressed by Binford (1982, 2001) and Kelly (1992, 1995), mobility patterns <br />among human foragers often take one or two basic forms: central place foraging <br />characterized by a residential base from which foragers venture to collect foods and to <br />which they return to consume them; and sequential foraging, characterized by movement <br />from one location to another where food is both collected and consumed. There are of <br />course many variants to the basic patterns: foraging groups may follow a central place <br />strategy for part of the year and a sequential strategy for the remainder based on particular <br />climatic conditions; or, a group may move its residential base two or three times a year, <br />following a central place strategy from each new location. Alternatively, groups may split <br />and reform, with part operating as central place foragers throughout the year and another <br />part leaving to act as sequential foragers for part of the year before returning (Madsen and <br />Schmitt 2005:124). <br />Central place foraging theory predicts that foragers established residential base <br />camps in areas where a mixture of plants and animals were present, which would have <br />maximized foraging returns within the vicinity of the camp (ecotones, wetlands, springs, <br />sand dunes, etc.). It is assumed that long distance forays from these camps were conducted <br />to hunt or collect special resources and usually resulted in establishment of a procurement <br />camp. These camps were used to acquire and process raw materials before transport back to <br />the residential camp in ways that maximized the net delivery rates to the centralized base <br />camps. Because of climatic variations and seasonal availability of resources, the Archaic <br />people of the Plateau were required to be collectors, the characteristics of which include: 1) <br />19