THE FOLSOM PROBLEM ROBERTS 539 



During the summer of 1935 the Colorado Museum of Natural 

 History also conducted excavations at the Lindenmeier site. These 

 consisted of a series of 15 test pits spaced at intervals across the site, 

 approximately at right angles to the line of the main trenches of the 

 Smithsonian party. One of these test holes west of the large trenches 

 penetrated the artifact-bearing stratum where there was a concentra- 

 tion of material. With this as a starting point an area 30 by 30 feet 

 was excavated. This pit yielded most of the specimens obtained by the 

 Denver group. The material thus collected adds to the general fund 

 of information on the site. Mr. Figgins and John L. Cotter, who 

 was in direct charge of the work, made available to the present writer, 

 for study, all of the specimens obtained from their excavations, and 

 Mr. Cotter also furnished a copy of the manuscript that he submitted 

 as a report on the investigations. 



Since the fall of 1934 Major Coffin and Judge Coffin, with the 

 assistance of various friends, have carried on a series of independent 

 explorations at different places on the site and have obtained a largo 

 number of artifacts to supplement the series collected by the other 

 excavators. 



Approximately 6,000 stone implements and a few ornaments, several 

 of carved bone (pi. 10), as well as portions of tools made from animal 

 bones have come from the digging. No human skeletal remains have 

 been found, and no indications of a shelter or habitation have been 

 observed. The general complex of implements consists of character- 

 istically fluted points (pi. 11), snub-nosed scrapers (pi. 12), side 

 scrapers (pi. 13), end scrapers, a variety of cutting edges, drills, 

 flakes with small, sharp points that may have served to mark on bone, 

 rough-flake knives, fluted knives, large blades, sandstone shaft 

 polishers and rubbing stones of the same material. The few bone tools 

 probably represent punches or awls. Most of the stone artifacts are 

 chipped or flaked — there are no polished tools — and show that the 

 lithic component in the material culture was primarily a flake industry, 

 although tools of the core type are found. The latter are mainly 

 hammers and choppers. 



Evidence from the digging shows that the occupation level was 

 once an old valley bottom which subsequently was filled in by the 

 wearing away of bordering ridges. At the present time it suggests a 

 terrace above an intermittent tributary to a series of streams that 

 eventually join the South Platte River (pi. 5, fig. 1). This effect 

 has been produced by erosion of the ridges that once bordered the 

 valley on the south. At the time of occupation the valley bottom 

 was dotted with bogs and marshy places. The makers of the imple- 

 ments camped on the slopes above these meadows. During the 

 latter part of their occupancy and for some time subsequent to it 

 climatic conditions were more favorable to vegetation than they 



