Of Hearth and Home: Investigating Site Structure at the Fossil Creek Site, an Early Ceramic Camp in Larimer County, Colorado

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fossil Creek (5LR13041) is a significant Early Ceramic (Plains Woodland) campsite in northern Colorado. Since 2010, archaeologists from Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado periodically conducted controlled surface collection, shovel testing, ground-based remote sensing, and block excavation (70 m2) of this large site. Artifacts recovered span the Late Pleistocene to Late Holocene in age, but are dominated by Early Ceramic era (CE 150-1150) artifacts, including abundant corner-notched arrow points, cord-marked pottery, ground stone, faunal remains, and thermal features. The features consist of heavily oxidized basins and pits filled with ash/charcoal, and on occasion, large quantities of fire altered rock. Radiocarbon dating of macrobotanical remains recovered from feature fill suggests contemporaneity between the features. This presentation focuses on site structure through examination of the spatial distribution of thermal features, ground stone, fire altered rock, and animal remains. Analysis suggests the Fossil Creek site represents a locale of decreased residential mobility linked to intensified food production, perhaps during a period of food stress during the Early Ceramic era.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26294