Trails, Trade, and West-Central Colorado’s Gateway Tradition: Ethnohistorical Observations

Description

The term “Gateway tradition” has been invoked by others to describe and attempt to taxonomically classify some regionally atypical Formative Era archaeological sites in west-central Colorado. This paper summarizes the ethnohistory of the territory ascribed to the Gateway tradition and demonstrates that it enfolds a critically strategic trail system. This system includes the primary access routes to the three most important travel gateways between the Continental Divide and the Colorado River canyons below Moab, Utah. These topographic gateways connected the Southwest culture area with the remote interior to the north of the Colorado River. The gateways are on the Colorado River at Moab, Utah, at the Colorado’s confluence with the Dolores River, and on the Gunnison River at Delta, Colorado. The peoples responsible for the Gateway tradition were situated where they might well have controlled/regulated access from the greater Southwest to and perhaps through these critical gateways. From this strategic location they could also have easily exploited, for trade and subsistence purposes, local deposits of salt and the substantial herds of mule deer, elk, and other large mammals in the region. They thus could have readily obtained quantities of salt, dried meat, and tanned hides as well as varied other commodities funneled to them by peoples to the north and south of the Colorado River. A combined ethnohistorical and archaeological perspective suggests that the Gateway tradition very likely developed from horticulturists who were also specialized hunters and traders within an indigenous nation-tonation trade system. Regardless of what physical, linguistic, or ethnic background its people may have come from, the evidence suggests that it is highly predictable that just such a specialized, or even a hybrid, culture would have developed in precisely the region where it is today recognized by archaeologists. The author closes with a brief exploration of some of the mechanisms that may have led to the development of the Gateway manifestation as described by others.