The Magic Mountain site is an Archaic and Woodland village site in

Jefferson County, Colorado Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 582,910, making it the fourth-most populous county in Colorado. The county seat is Golden, and the most populous city is Lakewood. ...

dating from 4999 BC to 1000 AD. The site was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1980. The site was named for the property owner Magic Mountain Amusement Park in the late 1950s. One hundred years before, the area was the Apex mining district, served by a small stagecoach stop.

Geography

Magic Mountain site, in the foothills of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

in the

Denver Basin The Denver Basin, variously referred to as the Julesburg Basin, Denver-Julesburg Basin (after Julesburg, Colorado), or the D-J Basin, is a geologic structural basin centered in eastern Colorado in the United States, but extending into southeast Wyo ...

, is located by Apex Creek. The ecosystem is a transitional mountain-plains zone.Gibbon, Ames, p. 488. It is located at: 39°42'50"N 105°12'42"W

History

Within the

, prehistoric time periods are traditionally identified as: Paleo-Indian,

Archaic Archaic is a period of time preceding a designated classical period, or something from an older period of time that is also not found or used currently: *List of archaeological periods **Archaic Sumerian language, spoken between 31st - 26th cent ...

and Ceramic, or

Woodland period In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...

s. The Denver basin is a geological definition of a portion of the

Colorado Piedmont The Colorado Piedmont is an area along the base of the foothills of the Front Range in north central Colorado in the United States. The region consists of a broad hilly valley, just under 5000 ft (1500 m) in elevation, stretching north and northe ...

, from

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

, to

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

. The

Palmer Divide Named after Colorado Springs founder William Jackson Palmer, the Palmer Divide is a caprock escarpment style ridge in central Colorado that separates the Arkansas River basin from the South Platte basin. It extends from the Front Range of the Rock ...

, with elevations from 6,000 to 7,500, is a subsection of that area that separates the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwestern United States, Midwest and the American Sout ...

watershed from that of the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

. It runs perpendicular to the

and divides the Denver metropolitan area from the southern Pikes Peak area.

Archaic periods

People of the

period were hunters of smaller game, such as deer, antelope and rabbits, and gatherers of wild plants. The people moved seasonally to hunting and gathering sites. Late in the Archaic period, about 200-500 A.D., corn was introduced into the diet and pottery-making became an occupation for storing and carrying food.

Colorado High Plains Woodland period

The groups of people during this period became much more diverse, were more likely to settle in a location or a couple of locations, cultivate, domesticate animals, make pottery and baskets, and perform ceremonial rituals.

Archaeology

Artifacts

Lithic tools and projectile points were found at the site that helped to redefine past assumptions about the area Archaic and Woodland cultures. Corner notched projectile points found at the site were named Apex points and were similar to New Mexican En Medio and San José projectile points. The archaeological evidence was obtained from six layers, classified into zones A-F. There are some Fremont artifacts found in Zone A, judged to be attained through trading. A small cemetery led to the discovery of the archaeological remains on the site, but much of it had been looted before the excavation.Irwin, Excavation of Magic Mountain.

Excavations

Collection

The collection of 2,500 artifacts from the Magic Mountain archaeological site were moved to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 2001.Colwell, Nash, Holen.

Historical significance

The site is distinctive for its significant collection of Early, Middle and Late Archaic artifacts, burial sites and multi-cultural history.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Colwell, Chip; Nash, Stephen E.; Holen, Steven R. (2010
''Crossroads of Culture: Anthropology Collections of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.''
Boulder: University Press of Colorado. * Gibbon, Guy E.; Ames, Kenneth M
''Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia''.
1998. . * Golden Pioneer Museum. (2002) ''Golden, Colorado.'' Chicago: Arcadia Publishing. p. 22. . * Irwin, Henry J. and Cynthia C. Irwin (1966) ''Excavations at Magic Mountain: A Diachronic Study of Plains-Southwest Relations.'' Denver Museum of Natural History Proceedings Number 12. October 20, 1966. * Justice, Noel D. (2002). ''Stone Age spear and arrow points of the Southwestern United States.'' Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University Press. . * Kipfer, Barbara Ann. (2000)
''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology.''
New York:Plenum Publisher. . * Nelson, Michael; Laubach, Tony

The Denver Channel. October 27, 2009. Retrieved 9-28-2011. * Nelson, Sarah M. (2008). ''Denver: An Archaeological History.'' Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. . * Waldman, Carl (2009) 985 Atlas of the North American. New York: Facts on File. .