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The project area may also be considered a corridor for possible localized <br />• movement of man and animals between the Yampa River and Colorado River <br />drainages. The area may have been occupied or utilized by the Poleo-Indian (ca. <br />10,000-5000 B.C.), Western Archaic peoples (8000 B.C. -Historic Period), and the <br />Fremont (A.D. 800-1200). <br />Paleo-lndian Occupation <br />10,000 - 5,000 B.C. <br />The earliest radiocarbon dates for occupation in the region are from the Paleo- <br />Indian tradition. This period (often divided into the Llano, Folsom, and Plano <br />Complexes) is characterized by the hunting of now-extinct megafauna by small <br />nomadic groups and the use of bifacially flaked, fluted, or unfluted lanceolate points. <br />These people occupied campsites, kill sites, and other special activity sites for short <br />durations. Vegetal resources comprised a relatively minor part of their diet. <br />The Llano, a late Pleistocene development on the grasslands of the Great Plains <br />and parts of the Southwest, is the earliest of the three Paleo-Indian traditions. It <br />is associated with mammoth hunting in the western United States and with the use <br />of the Clovis projectile point, a finely flaked, fluted, lanceolate paint with slight <br />tangs and regular transverse flaking. This Big Game tradition has been documented <br />from Middle and South America to the Arctic. Regionally, in eastern New Mexico, <br />the Clovis Blackwater Draw No. I Site yielded a mean radiocarbon date of 9220 B.C. <br />(Willey 1966:40). The Dent Site in eastern Colorado produced a date of ca. 9200 B.C. <br />and Clovis points in association with mammoth bones (ibid.). The Union Pacific <br />Mammoth Kill Site in southern Wyoming is also dated about this same time (9330+ <br />350 B.C.) and clearly places the mammoth to the west of the Continental Divide, <br />but no Clovis points were found in direct association (Irwin, et al., 1962:837). Haynes <br />(1965) reports that mammoth remains and a fluted Clovis point, although not in <br />direct association, have been found in a loess layer, Unit D, not far from the Hell <br />Gap Site in Wyoming. <br />The Folsom Complex apparently emerged at the decline of the mammoth and The <br />rise of the bison on the Great Plains. P.adiocarbon dates from two Folsom sites <br />indicate a temporal span for this tradition of about 2,000 years (co. 9000-7000 B.C.). <br />The Lindenmeir Site of northwestern Colorado is probably the best representative of <br />this tradition; it produced a radiocarbon date of ca. 8800 B. C. (Willey 1966:43). The <br />• Lubbock Site in Texas produced samples dating between 7800-7300 B.C. (ibid.). The <br />2.8-3 <br />