Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains combines history, anthropology, archaeology, and geography to take a closer look at the relationships between land and people in this unique North American region. Focusing on long-term change, this book considers ethnographic literature, archaeological evidence, and environmental data spanning thousands of years of human presence to understand human perception and construction of landscape. The contributors offer cohesive and synthetic studies emphasizing hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers. Using landscape as both reality and metaphor, Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains explores the different and changing ways that people interacted with place in this transitional zone between the Rocky Mountains and the eastern prairies. The contemporary archaeologists working in this small area have chosen diverse approaches to understand the past and its relationship to the present. Through these ten case studies, this variety is highlighted but leads to a common theme - that the High Plains contains important locales to which people, over generations or millennia, return. Providing both data and theory on a region that has not previously received much attention from archaeologists, especially compared with other regions in North America, this volume is a welcome addition to the literature. Contributors: o Paul Burnett o Oskar Burger o Minette C. Church o Philip Duke o Kevin Gilmore o Eileen Johnson o Mark D. Mitchell o Michael R. Peterson o Lawrence Todd

The Northwestern Plains is developing a unique and viable archeology, offering students choosing their future research topics in this exciting time a variety of possibilities. The entire area of the Northwestern Plains--mountains, foothills, and plains--has been a testing ground for human ingenuity. It provides an unusual opportunity to study more than 11,000 years of prehistroic hunting and gathering. Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains synthesizes what was a disparate body of data on the prehistory of the Northwestern Plains and presents it in rational and understandable terms. Key Features * Examines the prehistoric cultural chronology and the sources of the data for the Northwestern High Plains * Presents prehistoric hunting and gathering subsistence strategies for the Northwestern High Plains * Takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of archaeology using the data from geology, soils, faunal analysis, pollen, and phytolith studies * Provides a methodology for data recovery

This volume is the first summary and synthesis of the rock art of the American High Plains, from Archaic times to the historic period. Even more, it presents an engaging combination of Plains archaeology, rock art sites, and holistic archaeological research. This refreshing approach to rock art studies reminds us that archaeologists glean information from the whole site and everything that may have occurred there, rather than simply focusing on the images on stone. Clues to understanding rock art can be found in other images, in associated artifacts, and in ethnographic analogy. Archaeologists are shown how rock art integrates with other materials available for study. With each page, the reader will be engaged in a compelling, and comprehensive story that focuses equally on the art and the archaeology of the prehistoric plains.

This publication presents an overview of the archaeology of the Central High Plains. The volume provides baseline information about the archaeology of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Canon City [Colorado] District, the V.S.D.A. Forest Service's Regions II and III and the BLM's Albuquerque [New Mexico] District. This work describes the archaeology of portions of five states and represents a large geographic area ranging from the Continental Divide to the plains of Kansas and Nebraska. A major feature of this work is the fact that it is one of the first such projects that was jointly prepared by the BLM and the Forest Service. Because much of the land managed by these two agencies is adjoining or is in the same geographic region, it was logical to create a document that both groups could use. The Forest Service and BLM also agreed that this database should cover two BLM states and two Forest Service regions, again making this project one of the first of its kind. One of the primary objectives of both the BLM and the Forest Service is to study and, as needed, preserve significant cultural resources located on public lands, Evidences of our past cover large areas of the national forests and the public domain, In order to provide for the orderly and careful evaluation of these places, this baseline narrative gives our specialists and our managers information by which to wisely conserve our national cultural heritage. This volume will provide our managers and the professional community with a study that should become the standard reference for this region.

Southeastern Colorado was known as the northernmost boundary of New Spain in the sixteenth century. By the late 1800s, the region was U.S. territory, but the majority of settlers remained Hispanic families. They had a complex history of interaction with indigenous populations in the area and adopted many of the indigenous methods of survival in this difficult environment. Today their descendants compose a vocal part of the Hispanic population of Colorado. Bonnie J. Clark investigates the unwritten history of this unique Hispanic population. Combining archaeological research, contemporary ethnography, and oral and documentary history, Clark examines the everyday lives of this population over time. Framing this discussion within the wider context of the changing economic and political processes at work, Clark looks at how changing and contesting ethnic and gender identities were experienced on a daily basis. Providing new insights into the construction of ethnic identity in the American West over hundreds of years, this study complicates and enriches our understanding of the role of Hispanic populations in the West.