Download Display-6_Spanish Diggings_V1

Interactive Media
Littleton, Colorado
303.850.9697
Guernsey Exhibit Storyboard
Date: 6/1/16
Version: 1.0
Display 6: Spanish Diggings/Native American Quarry Pits (Combination of two
existing displays)
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Spanish Diggings
During the late 1800s, settles near the
town of Hartville found excavated pits and
trenches littering the landscape. The
extensive quarry sites, covering an area of
more than 400 square miles, were believed
to be the work of Spanish conquistadors
prospecting for gold and the sites became
known as the Spanish Diggings.
Visuals
Map: Illustrated map
showing the extent of the
excavation sites
Caption: George
The sites captured the attention of several
Dorsey, curator of
scientific institutes including the Bureau of
anthropology at the
American Ethnology, the Field Museum of
Field Museum of
Chicago, and later the National Geographic
Natural History in
Society and University of Wyoming.
Chicago, published An
Scientists who visited the area in the early
Aboriginal Quartzite Quarry in Eastern
1900s discovered that the diggings were
Wyoming in 1900 describing the quarries.
actually the work of Native Americans
searching for materials to make stone
tools.
Caption: Hundreds
The pits, some excavated to depths of 10 to
of excavation pits
30 feet, exposed rock layers containing
are scattered over
extremely high-quality cherts and quartzite
Spanish Diggings
for the making of tools such as knives,
site.
scrapers, arrowheads, and spear points.
Excavating the material was an extremely
difficult, requiring the removal of tons of
overburden, and then a process of heating,
Caption: Example of stone
cooling, wedging, and prying of cracks in an
wedge used to expose chert
effort to break apart the rock and expose
and quartzite.
the pockets of chert and quartzite. Stone
wedges, hammerstones, and bones and
antlers were used in the quarrying process.
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Interactive Media
Littleton, Colorado
303.850.9697
The chert and quartzite rich layers of PreCambrian, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic rocks
are part of a structural arch Hartville Uplift,
which was uplifted during the Laramide
Orogeny more than 70 to 40 million years
ago.
Stone tools made from Spanish Diggings
cherts and quartzites have been found
across Wyoming and throughout the
Northwestern Plains. Scientists believe that
Native Americans excavated the sites as
early as the Paleo-Indian Period (12,000 to
8,000 years ago) and continued mining
until the Historic Period (late 1600s).
Thousands of Native American campsites
around the Hartville area support the
extensive use of the area.
Caption: Extensive
excavations covering
an entire hillside were
the result of stone
quarrying by Native
Americans
Caption: Chert was a
precious commodity for
making knives, scrapers,
arrowheads, and spear
points
Step 1: A hard hammer produces an initial
shaping a core by a series of direct
percussion blows. River cobbles or other
dense rocks make good hard hammers.
Step 2: Direct percussion with a soft
hammer is use for more controlled shaping
of large flakes into tools and weapons.
Antler, ivory, or dense wood can be used as
soft hammer.
Caption: Quartzite bifacial knife
Step 3: small pressure flakes are removed
by pushing against the edge of a preform
during final stages delicate shaping. Antler
tines make the best pressure flaking tools.
Captions left to right: Quartzite bifacial
knife, Pressure flaked chert tool
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