An Early Burial from Gordon Creek, Colorado

Abstract

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.

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