As the Ice Age waned, Clovis hunter-gatherers began to explore and colonize the area now known as Colorado. Their descendents and later Paleoindian migrants spread throughout Colorados plains and mountains, adapting to diverse landforms and the changing climate. In this new volume, Robert H Brunswig and Bonnie L. Pitblado assemble experts in archaeology, paleoecology-climatology, and paleofaunal analysis to share new discoveries about these ancient people of Colorado. A review of seventy-five years of Paleoindian archaeology in Colorado highlights the foundation on which new work builds, and a survey of Colorados ancient climates and ecologies helps readers understand Paleoindian settlement patterns. Eight essays discuss archaeological evidence from Plains to high Rocky Mountain sites. The book offers the most thorough analysis to date of Dent -- the first Clovis site discovered. Essays on mountain sites show how advances in methodology and technology have allowed scholars to reconstruct settlement patterns and changing lifeways in this challenging environment.

Author Biography

Robert H. Brunswig is professor emeritus of anthropology and university research fellow at the University of Northern Colorado. Bonnie L. Pitblado is the Robert and Virginia Bell Endowed Chair and professor of anthropological archaeology at the University of Oklahoma.