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of the cliffs where modern roads and railroads have disturbed the valley floor. Overall, the project area has a grade of about 60 percent. It is best described as extremely rugged. It is covered with juniper trees, service berry and other Transitional Zene flora typical of the area. Study Objectives and hiethodologies The purpose of the study was to identify, document and field evaluate cultural resources occurring within an approximate fifteen (15) acre inventory area. It ryas predicted that prehistoric cultural resources would be sparse, if not non-existent, in the high rocky cliffs overlooking the North Fork. This prediction was based on this author's intensive studies conducted in the general area. The most comprehensive of which were those undertaken over a 10-year period for Colorado kestmoreland's Orchard Valley Mine near Paonia (Baker 1907). It was predicted that historic resources associated with the historic town of Somerset might well be encountered in the project area. Somerset was originally entered into the SHPO's site record file as 5GN1560 in 1977 by the Colorado Department of Highways (Appendix I). No formal boundaries r,ere, however, delimited for the ,site at that time. A site file search of the SHPO's files was originally conducted by Stover and Associates on April 3, 1990. This search did not, however, incluae all of the ir.•volved sections and an additional site file search was requested by Centuries Research on Ilovember 11, 1990. Changes in project configuration were the reason the second file search was • justified. As will be discussed, elements of ttre town of Somerset itself were the only cultural resources which were found to be involved in the fifteen acre * project area. A one-hundred percent pedestrian inventory of an approximate 15 acre area was completed. This area lies adjacent to and north of the highway and railroad and associated disturbed areas (Figures 2 and 3). In keeping with the recommendations of the SHPO (Sudler 1990) (see Appendix I), the inventory excluded areas previously disturbed by recent mining activities. The inventory thus involved the hillside and cliffs above the disturbed area about ttre road(s) and railroad which are located at the base of the cliffs. In order to inventory the cliffs and hillsides, a two-person team traversed the cliffs by following natural contours. This involved extensive bouldering and climbing in order to reach flat spots, alcoves, and promontories. Cultural resources were sought on surface exposures and exposed soil profiles. Special emphasis was placed on locating rock art and sheltered alcove sites. The distinction between prehistoric archaeological sites and isolated finds used on this and ether inventories performed by Centuries Research is usually that designated in the programmatic agreement between the Colorado BLM and SHPO. In this capacity, isolated finds are defined as single isolated artifacts or by the presence of less than one flake per square meter which generally do not appear to represent patterned human behavior. Artifacts collected during inventories in 5