The Murray Site: a Late Prehistoric Game Drive System in the Colorado Rocky Mountains

Abstract

The Murray site (5 BL 65) “is a tundra game drive near the summit of Mount Albion, Boulder County, Colorado. Rock walls and lines of cairns at the site were used in driving large grazing animals from a broad saddle onto a narrow ridgecrest, where they were killed from ambush by hunters concealed in shallow, rock-rimmed pits. Geological, lichenometric, and radiocarbon dating show that the walls and pits were constructed between about 950 and 1000 yr. BP. Initial use of the system was by people related to the Hog Back Phase (Nelson 1971), who wintered in the Front Range foothills, and who hunted north and south along the continental divide in summer and fall. The site was later modified and re-used by an unidentified Late Prehistoric complex.