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The lithic assu~blage from the Ridge Site is inteLpreted to <br />• cc,nstitute part of a butchering kit for field dressing big game such as <br />elk. It is not believe'c] to be from the same kit as one would expect to <br />find vi the area where the kill was processed. It is presumed that the <br />Ridge Site was only the location of killing and field dressing the <br />animal and dismarbering it into shall enough portions for transport down <br />off the steep ridge to the hunting c~urp itself. It is quite likely that <br />this n~,y be the Rnatcap Game 2'rail Site (5UI'271) just below the ridge <br />(baker 1986a, 1987). At this site there is at least one clear caipcment <br />which is certainly an ephemeral hunting camp when neat portions wore <br />further processed. 77~e lithic assemblage at the Ridge Site is important <br />in that it is thought to have prcrvided an example of the range of lithic <br />tools discarded at the butchering station, possibly after only one <br />anirr~l was butchered. It also reflects the variety of tool stone which <br />may have been available to one group of people involved in a crnmunal <br />hunt. xvamre (1986:51) has suggested t)iat tool kit sites such as this <br />are probably male related. For a ccnnunal drive system, there is no <br />particular reason to preclude the participation of wvren and children, <br />particularly along the drive line and at the kill point during field <br />dressing. <br />27u: assemblage seared to have a fairly high number of lithic types <br />represented in so few flakes. Of 19 total specimens, there were 11 <br />different categories used to describe the materials. Close e,canunation <br />suggested that there were up to 12 different lithic sources represented. <br />This would tend to support a view that several people may have been <br />.• involved in the field dressing effort atul each nay have dipped into <br />their own pouch to get t)ie tools necessary to acourplish the task. <br />Other than basalt, there is no known tool stone on the ridge itself and <br />this t2cplains why there was so little evidence of lithic reduction in <br />~~. the assemblage. There also seems to be a size factor involved in the <br />flake assemblage. As shown in Figure 13, the tlakes are nearly all <br />quite shall. Zmere is no specific standard of crnparison that the <br />author is aware of, but flee flakes scan to be smaller than he would have <br />expected a~ul those generally discussed by Hanes (1977), Wilmsen (1970) <br />and particularly Serrenov (1976) as meat knives. T)us may be <br />attributable to a suspected sliortaye of good tool stone in the area. <br />' Ch~e lithic source (Figure 3) is }mown in the area and one flake in the <br />assemblage may be frrni it. Archaeological sites are scarce in the area <br />kk of East Rnatcap Creek and lithic debitaye is not abundant at the ones <br />r; that are knwm. Scarcity and the need to cronserve and wear tools <br />ccxrq~letely out may in part explain what scans to be a shall size factor <br />in this assemblage. These subjects are, however, speculative at this <br />point and only of concern in helping to guide future research in the <br />w t. <br />ar ed. <br />'lype Classification <br />Ken xvamre (Kvanre and Black 1986) developed a site type <br />_ classification system while employed at Centuries. This systan utilized <br />data frcm the hluunt Ehnnns Project in (,ZUUiison County and is quite <br />pertinent to the archaEOlogy of western Colorado aid the eastern margins <br />of the Groat BdSln, ii not the whole of the Grunt Basin. Tkus <br />i3 <br />