A Class III Cultural Resource Inventory of Travel Routes on Island Mesa in Montrose and San Miguel Counties, Colorado

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Research by PaleoWest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this poster, we present the findings of PaleoWest’s Class III survey of Island Mesa in Montrose and San Miguel Counties of Colorado at the end of the 2021 field season. This project posed challenges in access and interpretation because the survey area was located on a steep, rugged mesa and the project area was considered a lithic landscape where historic inhabitants had engaged with and altered prehistoric sites. Transportation around the majority of the project area required the field crew to utilize “unconventional” modes of transportation, including electric mountain bikes. Additional challenges were faced during recording and interpretation of archaeological finds which resulted in the crew needing to develop a time-efficient way to document the dense lithic areas and carefully examining multicomponent sites to distinguish historic mining and hunting impacts on prehistoric resources. For example, a ceramic “collector’s” pile was found at a site as well as an array of lithic tools and flakes indicating likely presence of Ancestral Puebloans in the area. PaleoWest also recorded a variety of historic artifacts and a mine at this site indicating probable disturbance by historic miners that occupied the area in the early–mid 1900s.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Archaeological Research by PaleoWest   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36754.0