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The Patten Creek Site (48PL68) is a prehistoric lithic procurement and workshop area located in the Hartville Uplift area north of Guernsey, Wyoming.. The predominant materials are Hartville (''Spanish Diggings'') Chert and small quantities of Hartville Quartzite. The site is a multiple component site with buried materials at least as deep as 3.6 meters. Early work indicates that Plains Archaic components are the most abundantly represented in the central portion of the site, but other components have been recorded as well. The site was first formally reported by the Smithsonian River Basin Survey for Glendo Reservoir as 48PL32, and later investigated more extensively in loose association with the Hell Gap Project of Harvard University. Excavations at the site were begun by Irwin and Irwin-Williams in 1960, and by Keller from 1963 through 1965. A minor Late Prehistoric component was recovered at Patten Creek, and it was speculated that quality lithic sources may have been locally exhausted by that time. Three distinct Plains Archaic components were identified which correspond roughly to the Early, Middle and Late Archaic. A single Frederick point was reported from the site, but the presence or absence of buried Paleoindian components at Patten Creek has not been demonstrated.
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