The following projects are supported by History Colorado State Historical Fund grants, with matching funds from the Bureau of Land Management, the USDA Forest Service, the National Park Service, and private contributions. These funds support our long-range efforts.
In 2010, DARG launched a long-range, landscape-scale project to integrate archaeological, ethnological, and ethnohistorical data and perspectives for sites and locales associated with historic Ute trails throughout central and western Colorado.
Evidence of bison and aboriginal bison procurement in western and northwestern Colorado is extremely rare as is scientific documentation, examination, and radiometric dating of culturally modified bison bone elements, thereby making it nearly impossible to provide valid interpretations of the interrelationship of bison and prehistoric peoples in western and northwestern Colorado. DARG’s research endeavor is specifically dedicated to evaluating, dating, and assimilating the resultant data of known culturally modified bison faunal elements in western Colorado.
DARG's long-term project to document rapidly disappearing wickiups and other ephemeral, aboriginal wooden structures in Colorado is enriching the archaeological and ethnohistorical record of the Northern Utes.
Petroglyphs and pictographs are continually at risk from natural and man-made causes. DARG is developing an on-going rock art recording and database project to create "preservation quality" documentation for these irreplaceable cultural resources.
Archaeoastronomical sophistication is known to occur in prehistoric cultures in the new world and is being investigated at several architectural sites in western Colorado by DARG archaeologists. Sites with stone rings have been documented that exhibit alignments representing solstice and equinox positions, and possibly stellar arrangements. As well, regional rock art reflects apparent shamanic associations of the calendric features.
Research goals are focused on cultural differentiation in the archaeological and historic records and deepening the knowledge and stories of historic settlers and labor in western Colorado. Work has been conducted in an attempt to discover archaeological remains that are unique in particular cultures, as well as providing deeper understanding of the motivations of those who migrated into the area during the post-reservation period.
For links to research aids and to learn more about our work, visit our pageA series of excavations as part of DARG's Paleoindian and early Archaic studies are uncovering new views of western Colorado's earliest human cultures, and new research projects are focusing on Basketmaker II sites in west central and southwestern Colorado.
See our presentations page for slideshows relating to the research we are conducting in this area and visit our project page for more details