PERMFILE119931 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

z7 • reason why the district could not be extended into these areas as additional inventories provide data to substantiate such expansion, but such investigations are not currently planned for this project. The district boundary (see Figure 2), beginning at its northeastem comer at the Purgatoire River, crosses the Picketwire Valley floor and ascends the ridge forming the eastern valley side of Little Jeff Canyon, a tributary to Lorencito Canyon. It follows this ridge south, encompassing the headwaters of Little Jeff Canyon, then continues south on the ridge forming the northeastem valley side of Coyote Canyon, another tributary to Lorencito Canyon. After skirting the head of Coyote Canyon, it drops southwest to the valley floor of an unnamed tributary to Bonita Canyon. [t runs west down the drainage to Bonita Canyon, then northwest along the Bonita Canyon creek to Lorencito Canyon creek. Here, it turns to the southwest, following Lorencito Canyon creek upstream for a short distance to an unnamed tributary on the northwest side of Lorencito Canyon. It ascends the northwest side of Lorencito Canyon via this drainage to the ridge forming the south valley side of Little Pine Canyon, a tributary to Lorencito Canyon. The boundary then runs generally west along this ridge for about two-thirds the length of Little Pine Canyon, then drops to the Little Pine Canyon creek, continues west a short distance, and ascends the north side of Little Pine Canyon via a small draw. It then continues west along the ridge that forms the drainage divide between Little Pine Canyon and Puertecito Canyon and then, farther west, skirts the headwaters of Cow Canyon. It then proceeds generally north-northeast along the ridge forming the west valley side of Cow Canyon to a point overlooking the Picketwire Valley. From here it descends a small ridge to the Picketwire Valley floor then continues north to the Purgatoire River, where it then turns back • to the east and follows the south bank of the river to the point of origin. Archaeology of the Lorencito Canyon Rural Historic Landscape One hundred seven prehistoric sites or site components have been found on the Lorencito Canyon Mine project area as of the close of the 1997 field work season. Of these, all but two are prehistoric cultural material scatters consisting of chipped stone debitage, chipped stone tools, and ground stone. These sites are generally small and the proportions of tools to debitage is fairly high. Features are present on a few, and include hearths, FCR clusters, and one stone structure. The two exceptions are a primary tool stone quarry, and a possible vision quest structure. Ofthe remaining 105 sites, 85 sites have ground stone (Table 3). Five hundred seventy-six pieces of ground stone, or an average of nearly seven ground stone artifacts per site, have been recorded. Counts per site range from one to 56. The proportions of ground stone to other lithic tools and to debitage are also high (Table 4). Features that might be associated with camp or short term residential sites, such as FCR clusters and hearths, and scattered FCR, are uncommon, occurring in only l3 sites. These sites, however, are disproportionately skewed toward the alluvial valley floor settings in the project area, where less than 8% of the sites have been found, but where nearly 40% of the sites with these features occur. No sites on major ridges had such features or artifacts, and only 7.9% of the sites on . south-facing slopes and lower ridges had hearths or FCR.