The Plano cultures is a name given by archaeologists to a group of disparate hunter-gatherer communities that occupied the Great Plains area of North America during the Paleo-Indian or Archaic period.
Oshara Tradition, the northern tradition of the Picosa culture, was a Southwestern Archaic Tradition centered in the area now called New Mexico and Colorado. Cynthia Irwin-Williams developed the sequence of Archaic culture for Oshara during her work in the Arroyo Cuervo area of northwestern New Mexico. Irwin contends that the Ancestral Puebloans developed, at least in part, from the Oshara.
The Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, located on private property in Colbert County in northwestern Alabama, United States, is one of the most important prehistoric sites excavated in the state due to the archeological evidence deposited by the Paleo-Indians who once occupied the rock shelter. Lying in Sanderson Cove along a tributary of Cane Creek approximately seven miles (11 km) south of the Tennessee Valley, the shelter and the high bluffs of the surrounding valley provided a well-protected environment for the Native American occupants.
The Lindenmeier Site is a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component. The former Lindenmeier Ranch is in the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, in northeastern Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The site contains the most extensive Folsom culture campsite yet found with a radiocarbon date of 10,600 to 10,720 B.P. Artifacts were also found from subsequent Archaic and Late pre-historic periods.
The Lamoka Site, or simply Lamoka, is an archaeological site near Tyrone, in Schuyler County, New York that was named a National Historic Landmark in 1961. According to the National Park Service, "This site provided the first clear evidence of an Archaic hunting and gathering culture in the Northeastern United States ".
Prehistory of Colorado provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Colorado's recorded history. Colorado experienced cataclysmic geological events over billions of years, which shaped the land and resulted in diverse ecosystems. The ecosystems included several ice ages, tropical oceans, and a massive volcanic eruption. Then, ancient layers of earth rose to become the Rocky Mountains.
The LoDaisKa Site is a prominent archaeological site in the U.S. state of Colorado, located within a rockshelter near Morrison. The rockshelter was first inhabited by people of the Archaic through the Middle Ceramic period, generally spanning 3000 BC to 1000 AD.
Franktown Cave is located 25 miles south of Denver, Colorado on the north edge of the Palmer Divide. It is the largest rock shelter documented on the Palmer Divide, which contains artifacts from many prehistoric cultures. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers occupied Franktown Cave intermittently for 8000 years beginning about 6400 B.C. The site held remarkable lithic and ceramic artifacts, but it is better known for its perishable artifacts, including animal hides, wood, fiber and corn. Material goods were produced for their comfort, task-simplification and religious celebration. There is evidence of the site being a campsite or dwelling as recent as AD 1725.
Roxborough State Park Archaeological District is located in Douglas County, Colorado. Roxborough State Park, 25 miles (40 km) south of Denver, Colorado, is a Colorado State Park day park. Archaeological artifacts reflect that there were prehistoric hunter-gatherers who lived or camped, made tools from stone quarries, and farmed in the Roxborough State Park area.
The Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site, located in northeast Colorado, was a Paleo-Indian site where Bison antiquus were killed using a game drive system and butchered. Hell Gap complex bones and tools artifacts at the site are carbon dated from about ca. 8000-8050 BC.
The Trinchera Cave Archeological District (5LA9555) is an archaeological site in Las Animas County, Colorado with artifacts primarily dating from 1000 BC to AD 1749, although there were some Archaic period artifacts found. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and is located on State Trust Lands.
Apex complex is a cultural tradition of the Middle Archaic period. Apex complex artifacts, dated from about 3000 to 500 BC, first appeared in the Magic Mountain Site near Apex Creek in Colorado.
Cedar Point Village is an archaeological site located in Elbert County, Colorado near Limon. It is a prehistoric residential site with artifacts of the Dismal River culture and likely inhabited by early Apachean people.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.
The Apishapa culture, or Apishapa Phase, a prehistoric culture from 1000 to 1400, was named based upon an archaeological site in the Lower Apishapa canyon in Colorado. The Apishapa River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, formed the Apishapa canyon. In 1976, there were 68 Apishapa sites on the Chaquaqua Plateau in southeastern Colorado.
The Mount Albion complex was an early Archaic culture from about 4050 to 3050 BC, particularly distinguished by the Mount Albion side-notched projectile. It was called by James Gunnerson, the best known early Archaic culture in Colorado. It is related or similar to the Albion Boarding House phase.
Cynthia Irwin-Williams was an archaeologist of the prehistoric American Southwest. She received a B.A. in Anthropology from Radcliffe College in 1957; the next year she received a M.A. in the same field. In 1963 she completed her educational career in Anthropology with a PhD. from Harvard University. Beginning her career in the 1950s, Irwin-Williams was considered a groundbreaker for women in archaeology, like her friend and supporter Hannah Marie Wormington.
The Cherry Creek Rockshelter is an archaeological site in central Colorado, located within modern-day Castlewood Canyon State Park near Franktown, Colorado. Current research indicates that it was used by Native American inhabitants beginning in the Archaic period. The site is situated on the Palmer Divide, which allowed for a unique prehistoric environment that contributed to an abundance of food and water sources, as well as lithic materials for tool-making. These factors, combined with the structure and situation of the shelter itself, made the site a particularly attractive environment for prehistoric peoples to settle in. Archaeological study of the site began in 1955, with the most current original research concluding in 2002.
Hell Gap is a deeply stratified archaeological site located in the Great Plains of eastern Wyoming, approximately thirteen miles north of Guernsey, where an abundant amount of Paleoindian and Archaic artifacts have been found and excavated since 1959. This site has had an important impact on North American archaeology because of the large quantity and breadth of prehistoric Paleoindian and Archaic period artifacts and cultures it encompasses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Bradford House II is a prehistoric rockshelter, 24 kilometres (15 mi) southwest of Denver. It is situated on land owned by the Ken-Caryl Ranch Master Association. It was excavated in the summer and fall of 1973 by the Denver Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society. The excavations found several cultural features and recovered thousands of chipped stone artifacts, dozens of ground stone artifacts, a few ceramic sherds, bone tools, and faunal remains. The site was used by prehistoric groups during the Middle and Late Archaic periods, as well as the Early Woodland, and Middle Woodland periods. This is a span of 4,500 years. Bradford House II is located in the Ken-Caryl Valley. The Front Range foothills to the west and the Lyons and Dakota hogbacks to the east frame the valley. An abundance of archaeological sites, attests to the valley's attraction for the earliest inhabitants of the area. They frequented the area for its abundant resources, including shelter under the many bedrock monoliths scattered across the valley, lithic materials for chipped stone tools, and edible plants and animals. West of the valley, the arkosic sandstones of the Pennsylvanian Fountain formation lie unconformably upon uplifted Precambrian metamorphic rocks of the Front Range. Although mostly covered by recent to pre-Wisconsin alluvium, the Fountain formation forms southwest facing escarpments, or monoliths, with undercut shelters or caves, many of which were inhabited by prehistoric peoples. The elevation of the site is approximately 1878 m (6160 ft.) above mean sea level. Elevations surrounding the site range from about 1828 m (6000 ft.) in the Dutch Creek water gap to 1992 m (6536 ft.) on the highest point of the Dakota hogback ridge. The valley has a sunny, mild, and semiarid climate that has neither the extreme cold of the higher elevations to the west nor the hot summer afternoons of the eastern plains. A south-facing rock shelter like Bradford House II absorbs a great deal of solar radiation, further mitigating the winter cold. Precipitation is moderate, averaging 15 to 18 inches, and winter snows melt quickly with frequent down slope (chinook) winds. The valley consists of various grasses and forbs. The surrounding hogbacks and foothills support a pine-Douglas fir vegetation community. The recovery of floral materials from Bradford House II and other archaeological sites in the valley indicates that local plants such as sunflower, wild plum, acorn, and chokecherry were gathered and used by prehistoric peoples. Many animals, including elk, mule deer, and occasional Big Horn sheep, as well as a variety of carnivores, rabbits, rodents, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish are found in the hogbacks and foothills. Unworked animal, mostly mammal, bone was found in abundance in the Archaic and Early Ceramic levels. Mule deer dominates the assemblage, followed by elk, bison, and rabbit, with little change in dietary preferences from the earlier to later time periods. Several bone tools and antler flakers were recovered from all cultural levels in the site.
