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FnrmnhvP Fra <br />The Formative Era from 400 BC — AD 1300 (as defined by Reed and Metcalf 1999:6) <br />is represented the Fremont, Anasazi/Ancestral Puebloan, Gateway, and Aspen Traditions. <br />The Fremont Tradition people are likely the most represented in the region and may have <br />occupied it from ca. AD 200-1500; but there remain many unanswered questions concerning <br />the Fremont. It is generally agreed, however, that various horticulturalist (Formative) <br />groups --possibly of diverse origins and languages, but sharing similar material traits and <br />subsistence strategies --occupied selected areas in Utah and western Colorado during that <br />time. <br />The local Formative Era groups adopted many of the Anasazi traits, yet remained <br />distinct in several characteristics including a one -rod -and -bundle basketry construction style, <br />a moccasin style, trapezoidal shaped clay figurines and rock art figures, as well as a gray <br />coiled pottery (Madsen 1989:9-11). The Fremont apparently retained many Archaic <br />subsistence strategies, such as relying more on the gathering of wild plants and having less <br />dependence than the Anasazi on domesticated ones --corn, beans, and squash. However, <br />maize horticulture was practiced by the Fremont in selected areas throughout the region, as <br />indicated by excavations in east central Utah and west -central Colorado (Barlow 2002; Hauck <br />1993; Madsen 1979; Wormington 1956). On the southern Uncompahgre Plateau, although <br />radiocarbon data from Formative Era sites are fairly evenly distributed in that area, ten sites <br />with corn and/or squash remains have been dated and indicate their use within two distinct <br />times, ca. 200 BC to AD 500 and ca. AD 900-1100 (Reed and Gebauer 2004:83). <br />Several Formative Era sites have been documented within the general area of the <br />present study. Files culled from the OAHP online database (i.e., Compass) indicate a <br />clustering of Formative Era sites in Moffat and Rio Blanco Counties. In addition, <br />archaeological investigations conducted along the CIG-UBL, REX, and Piceance pipelines <br />(see Reed and Metcalf 2009) yielded evidence of twenty-four Formative Era components (26 <br />percent). In addition, thirty-two percent of the projectile points, subject to analysis, were <br />attributed to the Formative Era. <br />Protohistoric Era <br />The apparent end of the Formative Era (although the Fremont Tradition may have <br />extended until ca. AD 1500) in the region is roughly coincident with the drought of AD 1275- <br />1300 and the ensuing influx of people from the Southwest into the Great Basin and Colorado <br />Plateau. The newcomers, now assumed to be the Utes, were --and are --part of a larger group <br />of Numic Speakers (Shoshonean) of the Uto-Aztecan language phylum (Smith 1974:10). <br />Linguists are fairly certain that the Numic speakers were in southwestern Colorado by AD <br />1300. Their appearance in the Fremont territory ca. AD 1200 is based on finds of Shoshone <br />pottery mixed with the upper strata of Fremont artifacts in many cave sites in Utah (Jennings <br />1978:235). Unfortunately, evidence of their early cultural material is scant, which precludes <br />a precise description of their lifeway. <br />E <br />