CHAPTER 2
The Ancient Ones
PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC NATIVE AMERICANS l \ s early as 12,000 years ago humans inhabited Garfield County and the surrounding area of the American Southwest. 1 A variety of cultures have come and gone, including the Paleo-Indian big-game hunters (12,000-7,000 B.P), 2 the Archaic hunter-gatherers (8,000 B.P.-A.D. 500), the agricultural Fremont and Anasazi cultures (A.D. 200-1300), and the Ute and Paiute peoples during more recent time periods. Cultural stages in which these prehistoric peoples traversed the mountains and canyons of the Garfield landscape are known to researchers as the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Formative, and Protohistoric stages. Although archaeologists assign dates to various cultural periods, these dates are considered general in nature, as prehistoric peoples did not wake up one morning and decide to alter their culture and economy. Change in some cases may have been abrupt, but most cultural and economic changes likely took place over many generations.
Paleo-Indian Period: 12,000-7,000 B.P. The term Paleo-Indian refers to people of Asian origin whose 20
