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previous work on the area prehistory by other researchers have • gathered the kind of data necessary to deterttune seasonality. Grady (1976 and 1980) interpreted evidence fran north-western Colorado as indicating a sunnier high country oaupation, a winter river valley utilization and a fall exploitation of pinyon nuts and other resources at intermediate altitudes (Hilabets et al. 1979:203). Ethrwgraphic data fran observations of Ute Indian movements (Buckles 1971; Peterson 1977; Schroeder 1953; Stewart 1966) suggest that winter was spent in the lower elevation valleys south and west of the Gunnison area, but extrapolation of such data back into prehistoric days is dangerous. What are needed aze hard facts garnered fro*n controlled excavations of sites, for instance game kill areas where dental evidence on skeletal material froth juvenile or yearling animals might indicate what season of the year the kill took place. In stun, until supporting evidence is found to confirm an aboriginal wintertime presence prehistorically, it can only be tentatively concluded fran ethnographic evidence that aboriginal exploitation of the high ~ mountain areas was rarely, if ever, a wintertime phenatienon. Arother unsolved problem related to prehistoric exploitation of the Colorado mountains concerns the cultural affiliation(s) of mountain inhabitants. Several well-known culture areas surround the mountains such as the Anasazi region to the southwest, the Basin-Plateau azea to the west, and the Great • Plains to the east and northeast. The question is one of whether the mountains were home to a unique cultural group or whether the high coiu~try was a °no-man's land" utilized sporadically by peoples inhabiting adjacent loam elevation regions. (Black 1980:197). In tt¢ich the same ttanner as for the ttnuntains, professional understanding of the eastern margins of the Colorado Plateau Province is only slowly progressing, even though many new resources have been recorded and a few excavated since the late 1970's. Zb date it is recognized that the North Fork Country is very underrepresented in oarparison to other areas of western Colorado (Reed and Scott 1960). In this regard, the major need for prehistoric archaeology of the North Ebrk wuntry seems to lie in acquiring baseline data. Even though these are always many sophisticated azchaeological questions which can be pondered, the resource base is still limited. This was clearly evident in the sumt~ary of Mark Guthrie et al. (Guthrie et a1:1984). The patten~ of occuranoe of sites in the Colorado Mountains is only beginning to be urxlerstood (Grady 1980). Thus, solid inventory and evaluation of resources is still the primary research rationale for mountainous areas of the Gunnison Country. Even though archaeological understanding of the Colorado Plateau is better than for the mouttains, continued baseline survey and evaluation of resources is still an obvious and key concern for archaeology of that region also (See Feed 1984). In both areas, the primary archaeological questions, such as cultural context and date ranges, are only now beginning to be resolved. When catif,arcd • to other areas, such as the classic Southwest, archaeological inquiry has only dust begun. It is against this current scetkario that the 1?