Apishapa culture

The Apishapa culture, or Apishapa Phase, a prehistoric culture from 1000-1400, was named based upon an archaeological site in the Lower Apishapa canyon in Colorado. The Apishapa River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, formed the Apishapa canyon. In 1976, there were 68 Apishapa sites on the Chaquaqua Plateau in southeastern Colorado.

The Apishapa culture, primarily found in the Arkansas River basin of southeastern Colorado, may have evolved from the Panhandle culture or people indigenous to Colorado of the Woodland Period culture.

Apishapa sites, found in Colorado and New Mexico, represented a tradition of hunter gatherers who sometimes farmedbeans and five types of maize. They gathered wild plants and hunted bison, deer, prong horn, rabbit and other small game with bow and arrow, atlatl, spears and darts. At Picture Canyon, known for its rock art, the Apishapa lived on the canyon rim and farmed on the canyon floor. Horizontal lines of writing were found there, similar to 50 sites in Oklahoma and southeastern Colorado, which have been translated to include solar, planting and travel related information.

Identified by archaeologist Robert G. Campbell in 1975, the Apishapa culture of southeastern Colorado's Chaquaqua Plateau was thought to be an outgrowth of the Graneros from the Texas panhandle. Other noted archaeologists, however, dispute the connection between the Apishapa and the Panhandle culture, a prehistoric culture of the southern High Plains during the Middle Ceramic Period from A.D. 1200-1400. The Apishapa culture, while similar, is no longer considered a part of the Panhandle culture. It is also similar, except for architecture, to the culture of the Upper Republican River basin.

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