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Northern Colorado wickiups: research and documentation of a deteriorating cultural resource

Date

2011

Authors

Maggard, Annie E., author
LaBelle, Jason, advisor
Ore, Janet, committee member
Sibold, Jason, committee member

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Abstract

Wickiups are potentially the most endangered archaeological resources in Northern Colorado, as well as throughout the Rocky Mountains. Several presumed wickiups, both recorded and unrecorded, are located in Northern Colorado (defined here as bounded by Larimer, Boulder, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Grand, Routt, and Jackson counties). The purpose of this thesis project is to identify and share as much information as possible from these imperiled resources, as well as develop hypotheses regarding their cultural and spatial contexts, before they disappear from the archaeological record altogether. This research is approached with several objectives: to inventory previously recorded wickiup sites within the seven-county study area, to revisit and document a sample of those sites, as well as a sample of previously unrecorded sites, and to analyze structural and environmental characteristics of Northern Colorado sites, utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to make generalizations about their location and potentially predict the occurrence of undiscovered wickiup sites. Results show a significant variation in wickiup sites throughout Colorado, with Northern Colorado structures displaying a set of characteristics distinct from those wickiups described elsewhere in western Colorado by the Dominguez Archaeological Research Group in their Colorado Wickiup Project (2005). This project situates Northern Colorado wickiups within the context of that research, and provides a model for the accelerated documentation of rapidly deteriorating wickiups sites, which may inform future research and aid in the development of a over-arching management plan for perishable wooden structures in Colorado.

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Subject

Northern Colorado
wickiups
wickiup

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