A Quantitative Investigation of the Cultural Topography of Hunt and Sheep Mountains, Bighorn National Forest, Whyoming

The use of high altitude environments in western North America and by pre-contact and historic Native American groups has been a theme in archaeological investigations especially since the advent and demands of cultural resource management on federally managed land. The terrain of Hunt and Sheep mountains (2800-3100 m) in the Bighorn National Forest of northern Wyoming is a topographically bounded environment that has avoided intrusive or destructive archaeological investigations (Figure 1). In August 2003, the tops of these two mountains were surveyed for above ground features of human construction or alteration. The existence of material remains of precontact, historic, as well as 20th_century Native American activities on these mountains has been known for decades. These areas were assigned site designations 48BH1516/48SH676 (Sheep) and 48BH1995 (Hunt) in the1990s by U.S. Forest Service personnel. Low level aerial photography of Hunt and Sheep mountains flown in September of 2000 at approximately 2500 ft. above ground surface, revealed the extent of the remains of numerous undocumented above ground rock structures and alignments. The proximity of these mountains to the Medicine Wheel (48BH302) and their topographical situation in the greater surrounding landscape lends significance to these material remains for northwestern Plains Indian individuals, groups, and concomitantly federal land management (Campbell and Foor 2004).