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-13- <br />on the previously mentioned Union Pacific Mammoth Kill site puts it in the <br />same time range as the Llano tradition but no artifacts diagnostic of the • <br />tradition were found with the mammoth. Llano kill and camp sites are usually <br />associated with a high pla;.ns grassland environment but the Union Pacific <br />site shows some evidence of intrusions of the tradition into upland areas. <br />The Folsom tradition, characterized by the smaller, more finely made <br />and more heavily fluted Folsom point and a consistent association with the <br />remains of extinct bison, follows the Llar.c tradition with associated dates <br />ranging from 11,000 to 9,000 B.P. Although characteristically a high plains <br />culture like the Llano, Folsom points have been found in western Colorado <br />on the Uncompahgre Plateau (Huscher 1939:39), in Montrose County (Worming ton <br />1955:120) and near Grand Junction (Steward 1933). <br />The last of the Big Game Hunting traditions, the Plano tradition, is <br />defined more generally than the preceding traditions and is characterized <br />by a variety of unfluted, lanceolate projecti'.e point types. Although dates <br />associated with the tradition vary from area to area, a general ending <br />date of about 7,000 B.P. is proposed for the tradition. Several types of <br />Plano points have been found under uncontrolled conditions in several areas <br />of western Colorado and Breternitz (1970:106) reprrts the finding of a • <br />Scottsbluff point at site SMF132 in Dinosaur National Monument. <br />Although no evidence of any of the three Big Game Hunting traditions <br />has been found in the Craig area, the evidence of past environments discussed <br />in the next section does not rule out the possibility that this evidence <br />may be found. One possibility is that periods of alluviation subsequent <br />to Big Game Hunter occupation of the area have buried the sites and an <br />erosional cycle will be necessary to un.:over them in sufficient numbers to <br />bring them to the attention of archeologists. Such a sequence of events <br />may seem farfetched but Dennis Stanford, an archeologist associated with <br />the Smithsonian Institution, has described just such a situation in SJyoming <br />(personal communication). <br />4.1.3 The Western Archaic: 8,000 B.P. - A.D. 1976 <br />Climatic changes at the end of the Pinedale Glaciation around 6500 B.P. <br />reduced the numbers and ranges of the Pleistocene megafauna throughout the <br />western United States. The shift to a drier and warmer climate was parti- <br />cularly marked in the Yampa Basin immediately to the north of the study <br />area and probably applies to the study area as well. Amore complete • <br />