Kremmling chert

Also called Troublesome Formation chert, Troublesome chert

Kremmling chertChert (and flint)Rockies & Great Basin

Description

Kremmling chert is the archaeologists' nickname for chert from the Miocene Troublesome Formation in Middle Park, a high mountain basin in north-central Colorado. Barger Gulch, a deep side valley of the Colorado River near Kremmling, was the most heavily worked exposure: chert beds and slabs crop out on the steep slopes, which are littered with hammerstones, stone picks, cores and early-stage flakes over several square kilometres. People used it from Goshen times onward, then in Folsom, Cody, Hell Gap or Western Stemmed, James Allen and late Paleoindian times. At the buried Folsom camp of Barger Gulch Locality B, 98.6 percent of nearly 20,000 artifacts are this local chert. Small points of it were carried up to passes in Rocky Mountain National Park.

How to identify it

Texture: Occurs as primary beds and slabs on the Barger Gulch slopes (Kornfeld et al. 2001) and as large tabular nodules worked as cores (Surovell et al. 2001).

Geology

Chert of the Miocene Troublesome Formation (Izett 1975), an extensive source in Middle Park, north-central Colorado. At Barger Gulch the drainage is cut up to 50 m deep, and its steep talus slopes expose the formation (Kornfeld et al. 2001). The Locality B Folsom site rests on Troublesome Formation bedrock (Surovell et al. 2001).

Where it comes from

Rockies & Great Basin

States

Colorado

Quarries and outcrops

Barger Gulch, a southern tributary of the Colorado River in Middle Park (localities A-F along 4 km of the gulch)
Troublesome Formation exposures of Middle Park, Grand County area, Colorado

Used by

Goshen, Folsom, Cody, Hell Gap or Western Stemmed, James Allen and late Paleoindian at Barger Gulch (Kornfeld et al. 2001)
Folsom residential camp at Barger Gulch Locality B: 98.6 percent of 19,658 excavated artifacts, which include 13 Folsom points, 8 preforms and 40 channel flakes (Surovell and Waguespack 2007)
Late Paleoindian points of Kremmling chert at high-altitude sites in Rocky Mountain National Park (Brunswig 2001)

Sources

Kornfeld, Marcel, George C. Frison, and Patrice White. 2001. Paleoindian Occupation of Barger Gulch and the Use of Troublesome Formation Chert. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:32-34.liberalarts.tamu.edu (opens in a new tab)
Surovell, Todd A., and Nicole M. Waguespack. 2007. Folsom Hearth-Centered Use of Space at Barger Gulch, Locality B. Chapter 8 in Frontiers in Colorado Paleoindian Archaeology, edited by Robert H. Brunswig and Bonnie L. Pitblado, pp. 219 ff. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.archaeologycolorado.org (opens in a new tab)
Surovell, Todd A., Nicole M. Waguespack, Marcel Kornfeld, and George C. Frison. 2001. Barger Gulch Locality B: A Folsom Site in Middle Park, Colorado. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:58-60.liberalarts.tamu.edu (opens in a new tab)
Brunswig, R.H., Jr. 2001. New Evidence of Paleoindian Occupations in Rocky Mountain National Park, North-Central Colorado. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:10-12.liberalarts.tamu.edu (opens in a new tab)

All materials