Dolores Archaeological Program Technical Reports, DAP-003: The Sagehen Flats Archaeological Locality

The Sagehen Flats Locality is a spatial division of the Escalante Sector located in southwest Color ado about 6 km northwest of the town of Dolores. Containing primarily lowland areas west of the Dolores River, the locality has been the scene of human habitation for thousands of years. The first well-documented occupation dates to the Great Cut Phase of the Archaic Tradition or 2000 BC-AD 500. During this period the prehistoric inhabitants utilized seasonal sites situated along the perimeter of the Sagehen Flats Marsh and subsisted primarily on wild foods. During the subsequent Anasazi Tradition (AD 600-1200) the locality served as the home territory of several farming communities whose members lived first in dispersed farmsteads and then in aggregated villages. A prehistoric population maximum in the locality occurred about AD 875; a rapid decline then followed and the area was virtually abandoned by the Anasazi as a setting for permanent settlement by AD 975. The locality was re-occupied during the Shoshonean-Athabascan Tradition (AD 1500-1900) and served as a hunting and gathering province. Modern Euro-American settlement began in the area in the late 1800s.