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3 <br />Vegetation is dominated by scrub oak and serviceberry chaparral. Localized azeas also <br />support sagebrush meadows, wet meadows, aspen stands, or mixed conifer on the northern <br />slopes. Sagebrush meadows aze most prevalent in level to gently sloping azeas on top of the <br />West Flatiron. Bedrock outcrops aze not as prevalent in the sagebrush flats as in the oak <br />chaparral, and soils may be deeper. The vegetation and broken terrain provide excellent forage <br />and cover and support abundant elk and deer. Beaz aze also in the project azea. Edible and <br />useful plant products are seasonally abundant. However, perennial water sources aze scazce. <br />Prehistoric temporary encampments and collecting or processing localities would <br />reasonably be expected in this area, but azeas of potential deposition that might contain intact <br />buried cultural deposits aze restricted to localized pockets of level, stable terrain. Important <br />limiting factors to cultural use of this area would have been azeas of open vegetation and <br />availability of water. Currently only small clearings aze scattered through the area, many of <br />which aze the result of historical activities. The most favorable settings in the project azea aze <br />the sagebrush flats along a drainage on the southeast half of the West Flatiron. Springs aze <br />widely scattered throughout the general azea, but are most often found in canyon bottoms. None <br />of the local exposures of the Mesaverde Formation yield knappable siliceous materials, and stone <br />materials suitable for prehistoric stone tool manufacture aze scazce in the immediate azea. <br />• Existing Data and Contest <br />A files seazch was conducted through the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic <br />Preservation (OAHP). The files seazch indicated that although neazly 20 previous cultural <br />resource investigations have been conducted in the vicinity, very few cultural resources have been <br />found in the azea. Documented cultural resources in the vicinity include historic mines on the <br />north side of the river valley (e.g., Auden or Hawksnest Coal Mine [SGN1561]; Oliver Mine <br />[SGN254]) and along Sylvester Gulch (Gallob Mine [SGN37]), and a prehistoric isolated fmd <br />(SGN1734) neaz a natural spring in Section 34. Despite the seasonal abundance of favorable <br />resources in the vicinity, cultural resource inventories have generally been negative. <br />The project area is located in an area of transition or overlap between the West-Central <br />Colorado Prehistoric Context (Reed 1984) and the Colorado Mountains Prehistoric Context <br />(Guthrie, et al. 1984). Portions of the azea surveyed during the West Central Colorado Coal <br />Leases project are also nearby (Hibbets, et al. 1979). The survey for the realignment and <br />improvement of Highway 133 from Hotchkiss to Paonia Reservoir (Gooding 1978) documented <br />only the Hawksnest Mine in the vicinity of the present project. Neither of the Context documents <br />noted above discusses evidence of frequent prehistoric use of the scrub oak chaparral during any <br />of the prehistoric periods. Prehistoric utilization of this azea was appazently not very intensive. <br />The eazliest documented historical visit to the general azea was the Dominguez-Escalante <br />. expedition of 1776 which passed along portions of the North Fork of the Gunnison River (Chavez <br />and Warner 1976:29). The area was within the range of Euro-American trapping activities in the <br />