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Mar 26, 2008 7:37 pm US/Mountain
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Ancient Artifacts Found In Colo. Help Historians
Reporting
Paul Day
MONUMENT, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Thousands of ancient artifacts have been found in Colorado forests. They range from old cookware to prehistoric spear points and say a lot about Colorado's past.
While Libby Shelton was inspecting artifacts from an old mining camp, she came across a cup handle. She said the fact the handle is made from porcelain, and not tin, could provide a fascinating clue about those 19th century miners.
"It could mean there were women with them," Shelton said.
Shelton an other volunteers are with a program called Passport In Time or "PIT." They cataloguing thousands of relics found in The Pike and the San Isabel National Forests.
"I like to be outside and I like to hike, that's how I got interested in it," said George Mather, a semi retired chemical engineer.
Mather said PIT field trips go high into the Colorado mountains. They help the forest service survey areas of historical interest.
"It's amazing because we might walk for an hour and not see anything," Mather said. "But when somebody sees something, everybody's eyes kind of key in."
Discoveries range from old bottles to rusted machinery.
Curt Fair, a forest service archaeologist, showed CBS4's Paul Day one of the oldest artifacts -- a man-made spear point dating back 8,000 years. It was found in an ancient campsite two miles high.
"Just having people at 10,000 feet in a prehistoric environment, and the animals they were hunting, their relationship to the land and interaction with other groups," Fair said.
Some of the best items have been loaned out to museums, but most of them are carefully preserved, kept in an old seed storage locker with the hope that someday some of the best items will go on public display.
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