2016-10-20_PERMIT FILE - C1981035A (18)

Home Browse Search

4.1.3.3 Pueblo I Period The Pueblo I period (AD 750-900) is well represented in all of the Southern Colorado River Basin drainage units, except the Ute Drainage Unit. These sites are generally characterized by deep, single - chambered pitstructures with contiguous arching sets of jacal rooms placed to the north. Sets of upright slabs are ofeeten found on the surface of these sites and represent the footers for the jacal structures. Room suites typically consist of a front habitation room facing the open plaza with one to three attached back rooms used for storage. Ceramic manufacturing includes neck -banded graywares and white slipped decorated pottery, with some redwares. Typical pottery types in the western drainages include Moccasin Gray, Chapin Gray, Piedra B/W, and Bluff B/R. The period increasingly appears to be one of rapid aggregation and development. Many of the village communities of this period rival the size and complexity of the more infamous masonry Pueblo III communities (Wilshusen 1999b:224-226). However, after AD 875 these large communities in the western drainages begin to fragment and it appears that populations dispersed and/or moved southward into New Mexico and perhaps eastward into the Upper San Juan -Piedra Drainage Unit in response to environmental changes and ensuing cultural stresses. In the LPDU, 24.4 percent of identifiable components date to the Pueblo I period. No Pueblo I period components were identified during this survey. Whalen (198 1) suggests the origin of the roomblock, or pueblo, during the Pueblo I period is an adaptive reorientation from a hunting and gathering subsistence system with some food production to a system primarily sustained by food production. As the intensification of agriculture proceeds and becomes more labor intensive, the need for larger residential groups and permanent habitation sites rises in response to a complex scheduling of processing, storage, and preparation activities required to maintain the cultural system. In this view, the pueblo or roomblock is interpreted to represent an architectural solution to the social consequences of agricultural intensification. 4.1.3.4 Pueblo 11 Period The early Pueblo II (PII) period (AD 950-1050) is poorly understood and the population evidently much smaller than occurs during the peak of the PI period. Sites dating to early PII are few in number and have not been subject to extensive professional excavations, as have the more ubiquitous and formidable PI and late PII-PIII period sites (Lipe and Varien 1999a: 253). The habitation sites tend to be unit pueblos with a kiva and room suite usually representing only one to two households. It appears that by the AD 1OOOs, the region is beginning to be re -populated by former inhabitants and architectural units become more diverse and complex later in the era. Similar to BMIII sites, the PII habitations are placed in proximity to loess soils of mesa tops in middle elevation settings. Early Pueblo II sites are generally recognized by the appearance of Mancos Corrugated, Cortez B/W, and Deadmans B/R pottery and tend to use composite architectural techniques involving jacal with some masonry. By the late Pueblo II period (AD 1050- 1150), horizontal -laid masonry architecture prevails and larger villages appear in addition to hamlets. Pottery types in the western drainages during the late Pueblo 1I include Dolores Corrugated and Mancos B/W, with decorated wares now utilizing organic instead of mineral paints. Decorated wares become more elaborate with better line execution and tradewares appear more frequently. By the late AD 1OOOs to early 11OOs, Chaco -style great houses appear amidst increasingly dense local communities, and some of the great houses are continuously occupied into the early PIII period. By the end of the late Pueblo II period, community growth stabilizes, while depopulation of the eastern drainage systems appears complete. In the LPDU, the PII period sees a contraction in population (13.6% of identifiable An Intensive CRI for GCC Energy's Proposed Groundwater Monitoring Wells on State and Private Lands in La Plata County, CO SEAS 16-098 October 2016 10