COLORADO'S DWELLERS OF THE PAST by Pam North Colorado residents tend to think of the state's history in more recent terms of just about a century-and-a-half, probably because it was during the early 1850s that Spanish-American settlement of the San Luis Valley began, with Anglo-American towns along the Front Range soon following. Man had existed here eons before that, however. His presence thousands of years ago has been documented by the artifacts he left behind, found in the earth's rock layers by archaeologists. He was the prehistoric Folsom Man, and he fashioned lances and arrows with which he killed bison, camels and mammoths. His lanceheads have been found in the skeletons of these animals, and other remnants of his life (scrapers, blades and beads, all made from stone, along with carved bone fragments) have been unearthed on the Lindenmeier Ranch north of Fort Collins. The Smithsonian Institution conducted excavations there between 1934 and 1940, probing the mysteries of man's early existence. Curiously, no trace of Folsom Man himself in skeletal form has been found, perhaps because his customs might have dictated burial sites to be somewhere away from the site of habitation, where so far they have remained undiscovered. His life was one overshadowed with the constant threat of great danger from gigantic beasts and tempestuous cyclical geologic activity, ranging from fiery volcanic eruptions to glacial flows. His survival through such holocausts was in itself amazing. From 700 A.D. to 1000 A.D. the Colorado region was inhabited by another group of man, a primitive Indian tribe who had no knowledge of weaponry or agriculture, subsisting off the land by eating insects, roots, berries and whatever wildlife they could manage to catch by hand. Roamers by virtue of their constant search for food, they probably lived in easily-assembled homes of a cone-shaped brush construction. Far to the south, however, in the Mexico region, there were Indians who were more advanced than these wanderers. They had learned the value of corn and how to cultivate this crop, and their knowledge, along with seed for corn, eventually worked its way northward until the Colorado tribes assimilated it into their own way of life, changing themselves from nomads into farmers. With no further need to roam, they began to seek more permanent homes, safe and close to tillable land. They devised unique habitations carved into the sides of cliffs, apartment-like settlements such as the Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, and other communal residences in various parts of southwest and northwest Colorado. These Cliff Dwellers flourished from approximately 1050 A.D. to 1250 A.D. (coincidentally the time of Europe's Norman Conquest and the Crusades). These cliff-dwelling Indians comprised two distinct periods in history, known successively as Basketmaker and Pueblo. The Basketmakers, a squat people, were good farmers and builders. Despite having only primitive stone hammers and stone axes for tools, they managed to build the extensive cliff-home complexes that were durable enough to last nine centuries. Ladders were the only method to reach these dwellings, and they could be drawn up when danger threatened. The baskets made by these Indians were woven so tightly that they would hold water, and they could be used as cooking utensils by dropping hot stones in them. The Pueblans, possibly people who moved into the area, apparently intermarried with the Basketmakers, blending their cultures. The Pueblans were taller, with a flattened rear skull portion (possibly the result of strapping papooses to flat boards), and they were more skilled craftsmen than the Basketmakers, able to fashion sophisticated implements and household items, and to develop their pottery-making to a high artistic level. They also had knowledge of bow and arrow weaponry, and how to grow beans and cotton. They were peaceful in nature, and developed an apparently democratic form of government and a ceremony-based religion. Remains of their carefully-engineered irrigation ditches attest to skills mastered by these people even before similar irrigation principles had moved from Egypt to Europe. Their culture was not to be permanent, however. The reason for the eventual disappearance of the Cliff Dwellers remains a mystery. A 23-year drought, from 1276 A.D. to 1299 A.D. perhaps led to their demise, or possibly to their movement elsewhere to escape the arid land on which they could no longer grow their crops. In succeeding centuries, nomadic Indian tribes, more primitive than the Cliff dwellers, inhabited the land of Colorado. Mountain-dwelling Ute and Comanche, and plains-residing Arapaho and Cheyenne, would be hunters, dependent primarily on the buffalo, which roamed the territory in countless numbers, and which provided the primary sustenance for life for these tribes. The animal's hide provided clothing and shelter; its flesh and entrails were food; its muscles were bowstrings and lacings; its hooves were made into utensils. The Indians' main method of hunting these powerful animals was to drive them over cliffs, since arrows were ineffectual except at very close range. The advent of the horse into North America by the Spaniards in the 16th century brought about a major change in the Indians' way of life, giving them a more efficient means for pursuing and killing the buffalo, in addition to providing transportation andmaneuverability in warfare. Indian culture through the next three centuries subsequently would develop dependent on the presence of the horse. The 1850s beginning of the gold rush brought hordes of men westward to seek their fortunes and settle the frontier, but these were the latecomers to Colorado. Man had been there long before. Resource: Colorful Colorado, by Caroline Bancroft.