Human Habitation In Rockies 9,000 Years Ago?

It was stunning to learn how long ago humans sat up on Pine Bluffs Wyoming, watching migrating herds and planning their hunts.  But could humans have been in the Rockies 9000 years ago or more?

According to Wyoming Public Media, 'Archaeologists studying a prehistoric site in Golden, Colorado, have found that people lived there thousands of years earlier than previously thought.'

They have dug more than 7 feet underground so far, and have found a lot.

"We found some animal bones and some chipped stone from making stone tools,” Michele Koons, curator of archaeology with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, said.

Preliminary results from radiocarbon dating show the soil layer containing those artifacts is 9,000 years old.

“So we know that people were there during that particular time period and they were probably eating, butchering and cooking those animals and making the stone tools in that particular location,” says Koons. She and her colleagues plan to submit their results to a scientific journal in the coming months.

During the time that they are exploring, the Ice Age would have receded and bison were about 30 percent larger than the ones we see today.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.