2020 Dinosaur Hunt Led to Ancestral Puebloan Finds
Tennessee historian, paleontologist, archaeologist, and geologist Chase Pipes owns and operates Smoky Mountain Relic Room, a Sevierville shop that sells artifacts from around the world. In addition, Chase Pipes hosts the YouTube series Chasing History, which features topics related to finding artifacts and fossils.
One of the team’s 2020 expeditions in search of dinosaur finds in Colorado led to a surprise discovery: prehistoric Puebloan granaries. The team trekked into an area consisting of 1,000 square-miles of wilderness in Northwest Colorado, a region once home to ancestral Puebloans. The civilization existed between 700 AD and 1130 AD and constructed towns and villages before drought and overpopulation in the 12th century drove them into the canyons.
In addition to stone food-storage structures, the Chasing History team found artefacts of ancient Puebloans. Such items included gastroliths, stones ingested by dinosaurs to assist with digestion. After the dinosaur’s extinction, prehistoric tribes retrieved the stones from the skeletal remains and used them to make tools and projectile points.
