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<br />CHAPTER 3 LORENCITO CANTON RURAL HISTORIC LANDSCAPE <br />Introduction <br />The Lorencito Canyon Mine project area preserves numerous small discrete artifact scatters <br />found differentially distributed according to topography, aspect and vegetation. Among these sites <br />there is an unusually high frequency of sites with ground stone. Sites with ground stone often have <br />numerous pieces and ground stone artifacts quite often occur in relative abundance within each site's <br />assemblage, even when compared to chipped stone debitage (McKibbin et al 1997:70-79). These <br />sites are most common in open meadow areas among patchy oak brush and scattered pinon and <br />juniper on south-facing slopes. These general pattems suggest that a significant part of the <br />prehistoric occupation of the area was for procurement of acorns and/or pinon nuts. A variety of <br />projectile point styles suggest this activity may have spanned the entire known prehistoric <br />occupation ofthe project area, from possibly as early as the Early Archaic, and continuing to at least <br />the Middle Ceramic period. <br />• In their review of[he 1996 final report (McKibbin et al. 1997), the State Historic Preservation <br />Office indicated "potential exists for aNational Registerdistrictdealmg with prehistoric exploitation <br />patterns" (letter from James E. Hartmann, State Historic Preservation Officer, to Kent A. Gorham, <br />Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology, Mazch 21, 1997). This observation is certainly true, <br />and is the impetus for a reconsideration of how to assess the significance of many of the cultural <br />resources on the Lorencito Canyon Mine project area. Up to this point, all National Register <br />evaluations have considered each resource individually. This fails to recognize the significance <br />conveyed by the aggregate assemblage of sites. <br />A National Register district is an appropriate approach for evaluating the majority of the <br />project's prehistoric sites. A district "possesses a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity <br />of sites, buildings, structures, or objects united historically or aesthetically by plan or physical <br />development" (National Park Service 1991). Further, the very existence of these sites is a function <br />of the landscape, and more particularly, the micro-terrain and vegetation pattems thereon. It is <br />therefore appropriate to view the district as a rural historic landscape. A rural historic landscape is <br />defined as a "geographical area that historically has been used by people, or shaped or modified by <br />human activity, occupancy, or intervention, and that possesses a significant concentration, linkage, <br />or continuity of aeeas of land use, vegetation, buildings and structures, roads and waterways, and <br />natural features" (McClelland et al. n.d.). For the purposes of these discussions, the area will be <br />referred to as the Lorencito Canyon Rural Historic Landscape (LCRHL), and will be considered a <br />• district eligible for inclusion on the National Register. Essential integrity is present; this azea has <br />benefitted from little recent development and archaeological sites are largely intact and undisturbed <br />except by natural geomorphologic processes. The landscape is considered eligible under the last <br />