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All cultural resources that qualify as sites, such as prehistoric open camps, open lithic <br />scatters, occupied overhangs/rock shelters, and evidence of historic occupation, were recorded <br />and evaluated for determining eligibility for nomination to the National Register of Historic <br />Places (NRHP) as they were encountered to standards set by the BLM and the SHPO. <br />Sites recorded during the inventory were to be documented using the following <br />methods of mapping and note taking: 1) the basic approach to the data collection was to be the <br />continuous mapping of observed artifacts and features by recording UTM coordinates (NAD <br />83 Datum) using a Trimble Geo XT; and 2) photographs were to be taken at each site and <br />include general views and/or specific artifacts and features; and, 3) site maps were to be <br />created using differentially corrected GPS data and ArcMap. Field notes and digital photos <br />for this project will be on file at Grand River Institute, while the photographs are submitted to <br />the BLM. No artifacts were collected. <br />Discussion of Artifact Categories <br />Field documentation of chipped and ground stone artifacts was undertaken at each of <br />the prehistoric sites. Chipped stone was separated into tools and implements such as <br />projectile points, other bifaces, unifaces, utilized flakes/blades, hammerstones, cores, and non- <br />utilized flakes/blades, and debris. Functional names such as knife and scraper were used to <br />denote refined lithic tools to distinguish them from general terms like biface or uniface. <br />Ground stone was categorized as manos (grinding stones), metates (nether milling stones), <br />comals (griddle stones), and other ground stone. <br />Every surficial flake of a site cannot be examined during an inventory-level <br />investigation. However, many were in order to provide information on dominant flake types. <br />Accordingly, the size of a sampling of the debitage at each site is dependent upon the size of <br />the site. If a site is small, all the visible debitage can be classified; if the site is large perhaps <br />as much as half of the debris can be classified. The debitage was categorized according to the <br />following reduction sequence, flake morphology, material type, nature, and general size <br />classification. The reduction sequence taxa include categories such as primary (> 50% <br />cortex), secondary (< 50% cortex), interior (no cortex), shatter (angular and blocky), blade <br />(length equals three times the width), bifacial thinning (dorsal side of flake exhibits three or <br />more negative flake scars), and microflakes. Thermal alteration, such as pot-lidding or <br />crazing, was also noted. <br />Limitations of lithic debris or flake analysis are dependent upon an understanding of <br />the limitations posed by surface assemblages. The most important is that surface remains <br />have been cast off, cached, or lost by the aboriginal occupants. Meaning that all the formal <br />and transportable tools in good condition were taken by the occupants when they left. <br />Therefore, detritus from the construction or refurbishing of tools is not always a true <br />representation of all the lithic materials types employed by a particular group. For example, if <br />a particular chert cobble is reduced on site, one might be inclined to conclude that this was the <br />material type of preference for a tool kit, when in actuality the tool kit might include quartzite, <br />obsidian and other chert(s) represented by the tools that were removed (carried off). <br />49