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Apishapa Phase

The Apishapa phase is the name given to distinctive archaeological sites found primarily in southeastern Colorado that Native Americans occupied between AD 1050 and 1450. The Apishapa phase is related to both contemporaneous and more recent…

Donovan Archaeological Site

Located about twenty miles south of the South Platte River in northeast Colorado, the Donovan Archaeological Site is a Late Prehistoric bison-processing area with evidence of multiple Upper Republican occupations between about 1000 and 1300 CE. The…

Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site

Located in a shallow draw near the Arikaree River in eastern Colorado, the Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site was discovered in 1972 by the rancher Robert B. Jones Jr. and excavated over the next three years by Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian…

Jurgens Archaeological Site

The Jurgens Archaeological Site is a Paleo-Indian period (before 6000 BCE) bison processing site that dates to about 7120 BCE and includes the remains of at least sixty-eight bison spread across three separate camps. Located about nine miles east of…

Kaplan-Hoover Bison Kill Site

The Kaplan-Hoover Bison Kill Site west of Windsor preserves one of the largest single-event Archaic arroyo kills ever found. Discovered in 1997 during construction of a housing development, the site was excavated by a Colorado State University (CSU) team…

Olsen-Chubbuck Bison Kill Site

Dating to roughly 8200 BCE, the Olsen-Chubbuck Bison Kill Site in Cheyenne County preserves evidence of a Paleo-Indian kill of more than 190 bison. The site was named for the amateur archaeologists Jerry Chubbuck and Sigurd Olsen, who discovered and…

Roberts Ranch Buffalo Jump

The Roberts Ranch Buffalo Jump in northern Larimer County is a Protohistoric period (1540–1860 CE) bison kill and butchering site that dates to about 1663–84 and represents one of the southernmost bison jump sites on the Great Plains. Discovered in 1957,…

Stewart’s Cattle Guard Archaeological Site

The Stewart’s Cattle Guard Archaeological Site in the San Luis Valley represents a late summer or early fall bison hunting camp occupied by Folsom peoples in the Paleo-Indian period (before 6000 BCE). The site was discovered in the late 1970s and…

Wilbur Thomas Shelter Archaeological Site

The Wilbur Thomas Shelter Archaeological Site is a rockshelter in northwest Weld County featuring evidence of at least six intermittent occupations stretching over 8,500 years. David A. Breternitz and graduate students from the University of Colorado…