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SDCTION N • T1>E PREHIS'Il7RIC/AN]ERII~ID CO6R~.'T OF THE NOh'i'Ei FORK COUNTRY In reference to prehistoric occupations, the study area is outside of both the classic Anasazi and the San Rafael Fremont culture areas. It is, however, located within the geographical azea thus far assigned to the Unoa~ahgre Crnplex, which as a regional variant of the Desert C.Ultural Tradition, has been defined from sites on the Uncrnq~ahgre Plateau west of the study area. Few appreciable indications for Anasazi or Fremont marLifestations have been noted in the Gunnison Country. The territory of the historic "Eastern" Ute Peoples (Stewart 1971; Calloway, Janetski and Stewart 1986) covered neazly all of Colorado westward to the Green River in Utah and clearly enoaiQassecl the (~nruson Country. According to the most recent investigations, the Utes are credited with a long oavpation in west-central Colorado, and Buckles (1971) has directly postulated that ancestral Utes are responsible for leaving the archaeological culture record represented in the Uncrng~ahgre Complex. If one accepts Buckles' wnclusions based on his work on the Uncompahgre Plateau, west~entral Colorado may be perceived as having witnessed a relatively steady occupation fran an unknown point in remote prehistory by peoples who participated in the generalized "Archaic" or Desert culture tradition as locally manifested in the Uncompahgre Carplex. This emerged as "Ute" culture in the historic period. This view is, however, not fully anpatible with suggestions of possible population • displacx~nents and problems of similarities in archaeological cultures among peoples of potentially differing linguistic backgrowuis and cultural heritage. hbrmington (1955), hbrmington and Lister (1956), and Schroeder (1965) have touched upon such issues, but as of this writing the question of a long Ute ancestry in west-central Colorado is moot, since archaeological data aze not in hand which will support a counterazgwrent to Buckles' view of a long Ute presence in the area. bhich of this issue is linguistic and etluu~graphic and will not be resolved in ttie near future. The chronology which Buckles (Table 1) presented for the Uncompahgre Corcplex is, thus far, the only specific cultural chronology which is rooted in archaeological excavation and applicable to the Gtuuiison drainage in the vicinity of the present study azea. Buckles has postulated nine Phases in the evolution of the Uncompahgre Ccxcplex as it emerge following the Paleo-Indian tradition, which regioirilly speaking, is poorly understood. According to Buckles, these Phases cam~nce with the Shawano Phase about 7,000 B.C, and end with the Escalante Phase which, in a general way, represents the historic Ute Culture (Buckles 1971: Table 6). A Palro-Indian occupation has not yet been clearly denonstratr~d or temporally bracketcrl in this area, but somr: people bearing this ~ tradition reran to have been present in tl~e area about 8,000 or 9,000 A.C. as indicated by occasional isolated finds of Folsom points in • scattered locales of western Colorado (Toll 1977: Table 1 and Jennings 1968:16; ba}:er 1980; and Reed 1984). It is possible that a pre- + projectile cultural stage, such as projected by Krieger (1564-, ccwld is