Coupla mysteries

[rginn]

Camped at Mushroom Gulch last night, about 25 miles WSW of Fairplay CO. This is close to the Trout Creek chert quarry, which was in use in paleo times. There's dozens of documented archaeological sites in the area. The first pic is an open rise east of the quarry. You can see hundreds of red and yellow jasper flakes here, but pretty sure any recognizable artifacts were scavenged years ago. The second pic, I found three areas like this staked out. Each stake has a numbered metal tag attached to it. Maybe researchers came in with GPR and marked off three areas for future investigation? I recognized the third one to be a cache of yellow jasper for toolmaking. It's been disturbed in modern times, but there's more pieces under those rocks. I didn't disturb it further. The last pic is below that rise on the north side. I found 4, maybe 5 of these half rock circles. This one is about 6 ft. across and they've been there a while. They aren't in a waterway, so they weren't set up to slow down water flow (you see some of that in this area) I've found a prehistoric teepee ring in this area before, so I thought maybe something related to a prehistoric shelter? Anybody got ideas? (That night I dreamed I dug underneath those rocks where the jasper was and came up with a dozed perfect Folsom points, haha!)

 

[Jatrox]

Last pic is similar to hunting blind but I'd expect to see more rocks. Unless they got hauled off and repurposed

 

[PikesPeakCharlie]

Could be hunting blinds , could also be defensive. I know of a teepee ring in south park that is at least twice that size , so it would be a little small for a teepee? There is/was a defensive wall in Florissant on fortification hill. In the late 1800s ,some is known to have been hauled off back then by one of the area residents for building purposes. I've included a passage from the book Pikes Peak Backcountry ( no copyright infringement meant !) Refering to the Ute trail.

 

[rginn]

Hunting blind would be a good guess, if they were taller at one time. They're not all oriented in the same direction though. The teepee ring I found up in the Weston Pass area wasn't much bigger than this, probably just a temporary overnight shelter set up for a hunter. Other evidence in that area supported that idea. That one has been removed by campers I guess, who actually had to dig the rocks up for their fire pit. These puzzled me due to being half circles, and some are smaller than this one, not something you could set up sleeping in, but ok for concealment if they were higher at one time.

 

[ToddsPoint]

Where is the Jasper coming from? Loose nodules in the soil? An outcrop in bedrock? When I visited CO I was told about a jasper deposit at Wolf Creek Pass. I never found it. I was with 3 other people who weren’t interested in looking for it. I’d love to have some to knap. Here’s your Folsom you were dreaming about!😉

 

[rginn]

ToddsPoint there's a quarry about a half mile west of this site where they obtained the jasper. It's in the bedrock and they were digging it out. Which is where I was actually heading until this site caught my interest. Go to Google Earth and Trout Creek chert quarry is actually marked these days. There is a road to it, but it's more like an ATV trail. I could have drove it all the way, but got tired of bouncing up and down. Pretty much every open spot you see in this area on a slight rise shows evidence of tool making. I was pretty confident on the ID of that cache, cause I've seen pics of others found in SouthPark, and there were more pieces under the rocks. Somebody for some reason pulled those three out, for the casual passerby to admire, I guess.

 

[rginn]

And if the weather holds ToddsPoint, I may go back down there next week and get some pics of the quarry. I promise not to get distracted this time, maybe.

 

[DizzyDigger]

If that was a hunting blind, wouldn't the rest of rocks used in making it still
be in the immediate vicinity?

 

[rginn]

There was a lot of 'repurposing' goin on through the years DizzyDigger, and later occupants could have taken those for a new project. No reason to leave just that base though. There's a lot of historic rock work in this area, usually building dams across the washes comin off the hills to cut down on erosion, which looks like somethin the rancher came up with to keep the hands busy. Maybe these are enclosures for cattle feeders, I don't know, haha!