Artifacts offer peek into region's ancient history

The sweep of human history in southern Colorado, neatly bagged or tagged, was spread across tables at the Monument Fire Center on Wednesday.

The archaeological items, marked by use, time and weather, hint at a rich history of human habitation in this region, from the plains to the peaks and from the prehistoric to the Cold War era.

Most of the 2,000 or so items were gathered in the past year or two by volunteers and U.S. Forest Service archaeologists in an unusual program called Passport in Time.

The program allows students, teachers, retirees or anyone else with a week or so to spare to comb the wildlands for artifacts that deserve preservation.

Volunteers on Wednesday were cataloging the finds so they could be stored for further study or display.

One volunteer, Gina Bravo, came from California for the experience. An archaeology/anthropology student, Bravo said she was most fascinated by 8,000-year-old stone tools she had handled that morning.

Running the stone between her fingers, she wondered who had shaped it, what they used it for and the fate of the maker.

"You wonder about its history," she said, as she was seated in front of dark pottery shards thousands of years old. "It's fascinating."

The Passport in Time program began in 1991 in the Great Lakes area and is now teaming volunteers and archaeologists for expeditions in 117 national forests in 36 states. Over the years, volunteers have helped stabilize ancient cliff dwellings in New Mexico, excavate a 10,000-year-old village site in Minnesota and clean vandalized rock art in Colorado.

This summer, volunteers in this region will help restore the historic Interlaken Resort on the shores of Twin Lakes; search for artifacts dating to 7,000 B.C. at Salt Creek in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness; explore the rugged Cimarron Canyons in southeast Colorado; and search for past cul- tures in the remote reaches of Picketwire Canyonlands in the Comanche National Grasslands.

George Mather, a chemical engineer from Evergreen, who was helping sort artifacts Wednesday, has participated in two- to four-week Passport In Time Programs each summer for six or seven years.

He said he volunteered because he likes to hike - and he's done a lot of that, sometimes up terrain he never would have tackled as a casual hiker.

But he said his scientific mind has been fascinated by what he has learned, from the discovery of obsidian - a volcanic glass - brought into Colorado by ancient people to make tools to the purple glass found in mining camps.

The purple cast of the glass, which is brought out by prolonged sun exposure, comes from the addition of manganese imported from Germany.

Since the importation of that metal stopped in World War I, he's now able to tell quickly whether glass found in a mining camp was used by a grizzled miner or was a remnant of a teenage drinking party 50 years ago.

Al Kane, the head archaeologist for the two national forests and the two grasslands, said the Passport In Time crews bring in just a fraction of the artifacts they find, those that "tell a story."

Some they can't bring in at all. One of the most intriguing finds he's uncovered was a series of walls constructed thousands of years ago atop Monarch Pass.

The walls, reconstructed through the ages by various hunters, were used to channel elk and bighorn sheep into the range of rock-tipped spears.

Then, of course, there are those artifacts that simply must be preserved. Pike National Forest archaeologist Curt Fair showed two of those to participants in Wednesday's inventory. One was a carefully shaped spearhead made of a whitish rock. Another spearhead, neatly broken in two, was the color of coffee and cream.

The white spearhead was shaped from a rock called chirt, and it dated back 4,000 years. The other weapon, shaped from quartzite, was fashioned by prehistoric people 7,000 to 8,000 years ago.

Neither rock is native to Colorado, yet both were found in a most unusual place - at 10,000 feet atop Guanella Pass. One can only imagine, Fair said, the journey the rocks and the people who fashioned them into weapons made to leave us 21st century Coloradans such treasures.

"For someone like me, it tells a story," he said. "For someone in the public, it's just a rock."

If you'd like to participate in a Passport In Time project - so the rocks talk to you, too - visit www.passportintime.com

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com