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<br />Three Late Archaic sites that contained structural remains <br />have been found in west-central Colorado. The Colorado <br />Department of Highways found linear, low-walled (10 to 40cm) <br />surface structures and a burial site, SEA128, near Dotsero. <br />Nothing was recorded within the structures; but, a burial found <br />in an adjacent crevice yielded a radiocarbon date of ca. 1180 <br />B.C., two large corner-notched knives, bird and dog remains, and <br />rabbit bone beads and awl (Hand and Gooding 1980). <br />A pithouse excavated at 5GF126, the Kewclaw Site, in the <br />townsite of Battlement Mesa, had a roughly circular floor four <br />meters in diameter, a central hearth, and walls that rose <br />abruptly 30 to 60cm. The walls showed evidence of having been <br />smoothed with water or mud glazed. Eight small, shallow holes <br />around and within the pithouse and a single large hole at the <br />center of the floor implied the presence of a superstructure, <br />presumably constructed •of wooden poles. This site dated ca. <br />1100 B.C. and may be a cultural .relative of the Dotsero burial <br />site (Canner and Langdon 1987:7.44). <br />The Sisyphus Rockshelter, located just north of the <br />Colorado River and east of the town of Debeque, contained the <br />ruins of a structural feature of Late Archaic origin dating 550 <br />• B.C. (Gooding and Shields 1985). Uncovered were a sandstone <br />slab-lined oblong floor and three stone foundation walls. It is <br />assumed that this was a habitation structure, and its presence <br />implies at least a semi-sedentary lifestyle. <br />Excavations of other sites in the area--numerous sites on <br />the Uncompahgre Plateau (Buckles 1971), Tabaguache Cave (Hurst <br />1942, 1945, 1946), and Wormington and Lister (1956)--did not <br />yield evidence of Archaic sedentism. Still, they have <br />contributed to the establishment of a cultural sequence for the <br />area that suggests fairly continuous human occupation over the <br />past 6000 years. <br />Research Orientation <br />The nature of the investigations at site SMN3760 will be <br />divided into three parts. The first consists of archaeological <br />and environmental data recovery and description. Excavated <br />artifactual and architectural data form the base from which <br />temporal information--from C-14 samples and artifact seriation <br />and cross-dating--is acquired. Paleoenvironmental data derived <br />from the excavation of pollen, macrofloral and faunal remains <br />will be compared with the present day environment. <br />• <br />7 <br />