Multidisciplinary Research at the La Botica Site, Conejos County, Colorado
Creators: name: Mitchell, Mark
Publisher: name: Paleocultural Research Group
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Conejos County, Colorado
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/85717/conejos-county-colorado
subject: San Luis Valley
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/7512/san-luis-valley
subject: Historic Period
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/temporal-keyword/29/historic-period
subject: Archaic Period
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/temporal-keyword/5726/archaic-period
subject: late prehistoric period
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/temporal-keyword/167/late-prehistoric-period
subject: Historic Native American
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/30/historic-native-american
subject: Ancestral Puebloan
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/19/ancestral-puebloan
subject: Southern Colorado Hispano
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/9411/southern-colorado-hispano
subject: Early Archaic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/9/early-archaic
subject: Middle Archaic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/10/middle-archaic
subject: Late Archaic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/11/late-archaic
subject: 5CN1061
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-name/126239/5cn1061
subject: Archaeological Feature
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/339/archaeological-feature
subject: Medicinal plant collection locality
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/4380/medicinal-plant-collection-locality
subject: Ceramic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/1/ceramic
subject: Chipped Stone
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/2/chipped-stone
subject: Fire Cracked Rock
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/5/fire-cracked-rock
subject: Ground Stone
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/7/ground-stone
subject: Environment Research
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/13/environment-research
subject: Ethnographic Research
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/14/ethnographic-research
subject: Reconnaissance / Survey
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/7/reconnaissance-survey
subject: Site Evaluation / Testing
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/10/site-evaluation-testing

description: The La Botica site (5CN1061), located in Conejos County’s spectacular La Jara Canyon, is a large and complex archaeological site that preserves a remarkable record of American Indian lifeways spanning at least 7,500 years. The site is also an important locality for the San Luis Valley’s Hispano residents, who gathered medicinal plants there in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The demonstrated time depth of the site’s occupation, combined with its unique and culturally significant botanical inventory, make it one of the most important archaeological sites in the region. To better understand La Botica’s place in the regional cultural landscape, as well as the natural and cultural factors that have shaped it, Paleocultural Research Group (PCRG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to archaeological and paleoecological research in the Southern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, conducted a multi-disciplinary research project at the site. The PCRG research team included a diverse mix of contributors, including archaeologists, biogeographers, geologists, geomorphologists, anthropologists, botanists, dendrochronologists, and historians.