In the summer of 1921, one of Colorado’s leading archaeologists, Jean Allard Jeançon, set out with a team of colleagues and students to explore and excavate the area near the San Juan mountains. For thousands of years, a variety of…
Every February, Colorado Preservation Inc. (CPI) releases their annual list of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places. The program brings awareness to historic buildings, landscapes, or archaeological sites around Colorado that are in danger of demolition, neglect, modification, or development. This year’s…
Petroglyphs in Mesa Verde National Park. If you are exploring the rural areas of western Colorado you may see some examples of rock art created by prehistoric cultures. According to the Colorado Historical Society’s 1984 publication Northwest Colorado Prehistoric Context, …
Near Milliken, Colorado is the Dent Site, one of Colorado’s oldest and most significant archaeological sites. It was discovered in 1932 by a railroad foreman, who spotted some very large bones sticking out of the mud near the railroad tracks. …
The ruins at Mesa Verde were home to ancestral Puebloans (or Anasazi) from A.D. 600 to 1300; it is today a National Park, protecting the approximately 600 cliff dwellings along with thousands of artifacts and archaeological sites. The November/December issue of…
When many people think of archaeology, they think of digging up items hundreds or thousands of years old, like arrowheads or pottery. But archaeology also looks into the lifeways of the more recent past. (Known as historical archaeology). One very…
Ever wonder what was here before it was Denver? Find out in the book Denver: An Archaeological History (University Press of Colorado, 2008), available from our library. The publisher describes the book as follows: “For at least 10,000 years, [what…
If you think archaeology is just for places like ancient Egypt, think again – Colorado is full of archaeological treasures and resources. There are two types of archaeology – prehistoric and historic. Prehistoric archaeology deals with ancient civilizations, while historical…
Colorado has a rich history of Native Americans, including plains tribes like the Arapaho and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado, the mountain Ute tribes in western Colorado, and the Ancestral Puebloan peoples (formerly called Anasazi) down in the four-corners region. Our…
Colorado has a wide variety of archaeological sites, and our library offers many resources on our state’s archaeology, including that of both ancient sites and more recent ones. For example, the Colorado Department of Transportation publishes their findings from archaeological…
