** May 20, 2025 **

The Barger Gulch Site: A Unique Folsom Campsite in
Middle Park, Colorado

Presented by Todd Surovell
Professor of  Archaeolgy, University of Wyoming

The Barger Gulch site preserves evidence of a Folsom cold season occupation dating to 12,800 years before present in an intermontane basin of Colorado. While many Folsom sites leave little archaeological materials (reflecting a highly mobile lifestyle), the people at Barger Gulch left behind tens of thousands of pieces of chipped stone as they overwintered here. Careful excavation of the site and analysis of the materials recovered have yielded evidence of Ice Age households. These are among the oldest houses ever found in the Americas. By comparing the contents of those households, Dr. Todd Surovell has been able to infer aspects of Paleoindian social organization, demography and activities—such as a camp circle, child flintknapping, and household production of weaponry—which are difficult to study from other kinds of sites.

Todd Surovell, PhD is a Professor of Anthropology and Director of the George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wyoming. He received a BS in Anthropology and Zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA and PhD from the University of Arizona. His areas of expertise include human behavioral ecology, hunter-gatherer archaeology, and the colonization of the Americas. He is also skilled in quantitative methods, geoarchaeology, archaeometry, and ethnoarchaeology. Dr. Surovell is the author of two books and more than 75 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is the principal investigator of the Barger Gulch and La Prele Mammoth site projects. He completed a five-year ethnoarchaeological study of Dukha reindeer herders in northern Mongolia, examining spatial properties of human behavior in campsites of nomadic peoples.

Photo: Todd Surovell, Burger Gulch Site

** June17, 2025 **

Rethinking the Origins of Horse Domestication and Its Impact on the Ancient World

Presented by Dr. William T. Taylor
Assistant Professor and Curator of Archaeology
University of Colorado-Boulder

The domestication of the horse is widely understood as one of the most significant events in human history, with horse transport linked to drastic changes in ecology, communication, culture, ceremony, and even the very structure of societies across the ancient world. But how did this transformative relationship between people and horses first emerge? New discoveries from archaeological sciences are overturning long-held assumptions about the timing and process of the first domestication, revealing a process that was far more rapid – and far more disruptive – than previously understood.

Dr. William T. Taylor is the author of Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History and an Assistant Professor and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Colorado-Boulder. His work explores the domestication of the horse and the ancient relationships between people and animals through archaeozoology and archaeological science. Taylor received his PhD with distinction from the University of New Mexico. His scholarship has been published in top-tier scientific journals and has been funded by international granting agencies, including National Geographic and National Science Foundation. Taylor’s research was awarded the Popejoy Prize from the University of New Mexico and his collaborative work with LIU scientists received the 2024 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 Photos: William Taylor

** September 16, 2025 ** (To be confirmed)

Presenter: Price Heiner, Forest Archaeologist, US Forest Service

“The Upper Crossing site preserves a robust record of American Indian use of the middle Saguache Creek valley spanning more than four millennia … including 29 stone enclosures.”

PCRG (PaleoCultural Research Group) Archaeological Assessment

https://paleocultural.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/PCRG-RC88-Upper-Crossing-Assessment-PUBLIC-LOW-RES.pdf

** October 21, 2025 ** (To be confirmed)

Presenter: Chris Johnston, Operations Director, Paleocultural Resource Group

Windy Ridge Quartzite Quarry