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were used as cooking fires. The presence of large numbers of <br />burned river cobbles in the hearths indicates that the stone <br />boiling technique was used to cook food. Mosquitoes were dense <br />enough in the bottomlands to cause serious discomfort to the <br />crew during the field investigation, which suggests that the <br />hearths may have been used also as smudge fires. Of the 12 <br />sites in the Big Bottom area, 5MF444 is the largest and offers <br />the greatest potential for further investigation of the site <br />pattern in question. As mentioned previously, the hearth con- <br />tents in particular may provide valuable information concerning <br />the kinds of resources being exploited in the bottomlands. <br />A similar but smaller cluster of sites occurs on the <br />terraces bordering Round Bottom, which is located about seven <br />miles downstream from Big Bottom. The sites of this cluster <br />include 5MF325, 339, 340, and 465 and are located on the left <br />side of the Yampa while sites 5MF457, 458, and 459 border the <br />bottomland area on the Yampa's right bank. While all of the <br />sites may have been oriented primarily towards the exploitation <br />of Round Bottom, occupants of the left bank sites also had <br />access to the resources of Iles Mountain. Site density between <br />the two bottomlands was relatively low but one of the sites <br />located on a high terrace on the left bank of the Yampa, 5MF462, <br />consisted of a relatively high density of debitage including <br />fragments of at least 4 bifacially flaked artifacts. The nature <br />of the artifact material collected differs significantly from <br />the other Yampa River sites recorded, indicating that different <br />kinds of activities were carried on there. -- ---- (•-) <br />