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An Early Burial from Gordon Creek, Colorado

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David A. Breternitz ,
Alan C. Swedlund  and
Duane C. Anderson
David A. Breternitz
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Sanford Museum and Planetarium
Alan C. Swedlund
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Sanford Museum and Planetarium
Duane C. Anderson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Sanford Museum and Planetarium
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Abstract

An isolated burial was excavated from the bank of a tributary of Gordon Creek, Roosevelt National Forest, northern Colorado. A preliminary report was prepared (D. Anderson 1966, 1967) but further analysis of the skeletal material and newly obtained cultural information add significantly to the documentation of the burial.

The body of a woman, aged 25-30 years, was given primary interment in a pit coated with red ocher. The body was placed on its left side with the head to the north, was tightly flexed, and was also coated with red ocher. Burial accompaniments include a large precussion flaked biface or preform, a small biface used as a scraping tool, a hammerstone, an end scraper, a preform with fire pocks, cut and incised animal ribs, and a perforated elk incisor. A radiocarbon assay of bone material from the left ilium produced an age of 9700± 250 radiocarbon years: 7750 B.C. (GX-0530).

No indications of habitation which might be associated with the burial were located in its immediate vicinity.

A reconstruction of the burial ritual is attempted, and the skeletal remains are compared to other early human remains from North America.

A summary of this paper was given at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, May 3, 1969, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 1971 , pp. 170 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1971

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