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tradition (9,500-6,400 BC). Of the four, Plano/Foothill Mountain is the most common and <br />include Cody complex, Agate Basin, Hell Gap, Scottsbluff, and Eden type points. Examples <br />have been found near Cross Mountain, Skull Creek Basin, Browns Park, Dinosaur National <br />Monument, along the Yampa River, Sand Wash Basin, Trout Creek, and near Hayden <br />(Collins 2007; La Point 1987; Reed and Metcalf 1999; Chase and Jennings 1981; Hand 2006; <br />and Stucky 1977). <br />Evidence of a Paleoindian occupation within the region of the present study is scant. <br />Intensive archaeological investigations conducted at 50 sites along the Colorado Interstate <br />Gas Company's Uinta Basin Lateral (CIG-UBL) pipeline, the Rockies Express Pipeline <br />(REX) and Wyoming Interstate Gas Company's Piceance Basin Lateral Pipeline (Piceance) <br />in Moffat and Rio Blanco Counties, Colorado, and Sweetwater County, Wyoming, yielded <br />only a single radiocarbon date for the Paleoindian Era (Reed and Metcalf 2009:4). Moreover, <br />this date was obtained from a site in Wyoming (48SW8842). Similarly, archaeological <br />investigations along these three pipelines resulted in the identification of only four projectile <br />points out of 414 as belonging to the Paleoindian Era (Reed and Metcalf 2009:50). <br />Archaic Era <br />Reed and Metcalf (1999:6) have divided the Archaic Era into four periods as follows: <br />Pioneer period: 6400-4500BC <br />Settlement period 4500-2500BC <br />Transitional period 2500-1000BC <br />Terminal period 1000-400BC <br />The appearance of the Archaic Era reflects a shift in the availability of food resources <br />caused by climatic changes at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. This shift is apparently <br />responsible for a transition from a hunting/mobile subsistence pattern to a hunting- <br />gathering/semi-sedentary one, based upon the more current species of flora and fauna. In <br />Colorado's central mountains, the disappearance of the Cody Complex (Middle Paleoindian <br />Period) is followed by a distinct Archaic Lifeway that may have developed in situ, as small <br />scale immigration from adjacent areas, or as long-distance immigration (Black 1986:201). <br />Black refers to this as the Mountain Tradition. Diagnostic artifacts from the earliest Archaic <br />Era [Pioneer period] sites to those dating near the middle of that Era [early Settlement Period, <br />dating roughly between 6500 to 3500 BC] include Pinto Series points, Gatecliff Split -stem <br />points, and Mount Albion Complex points. From that time until about 1000 BC [end of the <br />Transitional Period], a variety of large side- and corner -notched points, and the lanceolate - <br />style McKean Complex and Humboldt Concave types (many of these exhibit grinding along <br />the stem) are often found on local sites. The most recent period of the Archaic Era [Terminal <br />Period] dates from about 1000 BC to possibly about 400 Bc and could extend as late as AD <br />200 in west -central Colorado. A deeply corner -notched point similar to the Pelican Lake type <br />from the Northern Plains is characteristic of this period, as are San Rafael Stemmed points, <br />5 <br />