Folsom Point Diggings: The Johnson Site in the Foothills of Larimer County, Colorado

ABSTRACT The Johnson site is a Folsom occupation in Larimer County, Colorado. T. Russell Johnson discovered the site in 1935, which led to excavations by the Colorado Museum of Natural History in 1936 and later work in 1960 by the University of Wyoming. Little is known of the site due to limited reporting of the excavation and the Folsom assemblage. Our examination of the site collections gathered between 1935 and 1936 reveals an assemblage of 96 items, consisting of Folsom points, preforms, and channel flakes, as well as other tools including end scrapers, gravers, bifaces, and flake tools. Technological analysis of the Folsom points and byproducts of hunting-tool production suggests that site occupants fluted and finished points made from preforms of non-local materials, while additional tools and a few points were made from materials locally available in the Front Range foothills. As such, Johnson represents at minimum a hunting-weaponry-replacement locale.