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 endangered places, highlighting the history of southern Colorado, are: Adobe Potato Cellars of the San […]
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, “rock art sites are of two types: pictograph and petroglyphs. Rock art panels can range […]
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. Construction of the tracks, combined with heavy spring rains, had exposed a site that had […]
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 Colorado Heritage, which you can check out from our library, features Mesa Verde. One article highlights […]
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 interesting example is the Tremont House Hotel. This territorial-era inn was located on Blake Street […]
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 is now] Greater Denver has been a collection of diverse lifeways and survival strategies, a […]
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 archaeology deals with looking for clues to more recent events, at places such as battlefields […]
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 library has many resources available to those researching the history and archaeology of Colorado’s first […]
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 excavations undertaken prior to construction of roads and highways. My favorite is the report on […]