ARE WE THERE YET? Travel Corridors, Prehistoric Rest Stops, and the Twin Tunnels Site (5CC389)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "*A New Look at the Southern Rocky Mountains: Crossroads of Western North America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2023 Centennial Archaeology conducted data recovery excavation at the Twin Tunnels Site (5CC389) on the north side of I-70 overlooking Clear Creek. The site occupies a transitional environmental zone between the plains to the east and the high country to the west. The excavation produced a diverse assemblage of lithics, projectile points, ceramics, thermal features, and faunal remains. Radiocarbon dates and diagnostic artifacts reflect repeated occupations from the Early Archaic through the Late Prehistoric periods. However, the archaeological signature of the site is less robust than other residential sites excavated along the Front Range and in the high country. This relatively low artifact density, along with the location of the site in a narrow section of the Clear Creek valley, which forms a natural travel corridor from the Plains to the Mountains, suggests that 5CC389 primarily functioned as a prehistoric “rest stop” for groups traveling between low and high elevation environments. This pattern, which persisted for millennia, is reflective of larger systems of regional settlement and landscape use.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• *A New Look at the Southern Rocky Mountains: Crossroads of Western North America

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51990