Early Native American Village Discovered in Colorado

DURANGO, COLORADO—The Journal reports that human remains and traces of early Native American villages dating to A.D. 800 have been discovered ahead of highway construction on top of southwestern Colorado’s Florida Mesa. Enhanced radar technology helped scientists pinpoint ceremonial sites and pit houses, according to Charlie Reed of Alpine Archaeological Consultants. Shells that originated in the Baja region suggest the people who lived on Florida Mesa had extensive trade networks, and fish bones unearthed on the floor of a pit house are evidence of fishing in the Animas River. “It’s really the beginning of the first villages we see in the Southwest," explained archaeologist Richard Wilshusen of Colorado State University. ”And it’s the beginning of something that later manifests itself in the larger villages we see out in Mesa Verde or Sand Canyon several hundred years later." To read more about Native American dwellings in Colorado, go to "A Western Wiki-pedia."