PERMFILE116166

• Permit No: C1991078
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Date: 12/11/2001
• Section_Exhibit Name: Exhibit 02 Cultural Resource Inventory
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

The Sub-Atlantic (800 B.C.-A.D. 400) was mainly a time of
drying and warming and, on the Plateau, contraction of the
pinyon forest, although warm wet conditions prevailed toward
the end of this period. A brief, cool dry phase occurred
eazly (A.D. 350-450) in the Scandic/Neo-Atlantic (A.D. 400-
1100), but the remainder of this episode is characterized as
warm and wet. A period of cool, dry conditions--the Pacific
episode--followed and lasted approximately 600 years.
Literature Review
A files search made through the Preservation Office,
Colorado Historical Society on 29 April 1991 indicated no
cultural resources had been previously recorded in the study
area. (Documentation of the files search is provided in
Appendix A.) However, regional archaeological studies suggest
nearly continuous human occupation of west-central Colorado
for the past 12,000 years. Evidence of the PaleoIndian
Tradition, the Archaic Tradition, Formative Cultures, and
Protohistoric/Historic Utes has been found. Historic records
suggest occupation or use by Euroamerican trappers, settlers,
miners, and ranchers as well. Overviews of the prehistory and
. history of the region are provided in the Colorado Historical
Society's publications entitled West-Central Colorado
Prehistoric Context (Reed 1984) and Colorado Plateau Country
Historic Context (Husband 1984).
PaleoIndian and Archaic Traditions
Cultural resource investigations in the region have
yielded surface diagnostic artifacts and excavated cultural
materials consistent with the regional cultural history. The
oldest evidence of human occupation is provided by surface
finds of diagnostic artifacts of the PaleoIndian Tradition
that dates ca 9300-6000 H.C. This Tradition is characterized
by lanceolate- and leaf-shaped, bifacially flaked, fluted and
unfluted projectile points, and the hunting of now-extinct
Pleistocene megafauna. Surface finds of Folsom points are
reported in western Colorado by Wormington (1955:120), Huscher
(1939), and Hurst (1943). This point type also was found in
the La Sal Mountains of east-central Utah by Hunt and Tanner
(1960:111). Sut until the recent find of the Montgomery
Folsom site northwest of Moab, no PaleoIndian sites had been
recorded in the region (Howard, personal communication 1989).
Surface finds of Hell Gap/Agate Basin, Cody Complex, and Jim
Allen points indicate that the entire PaleoIndian period is
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