ASPEN — Pitkin County commissioners meetings are rarely a setting that elicits “oohs” and “ahhs” — unless the board members are touring a site where scores of arrowheads and other projectiles and tools have been discovered.

The five commissioners and a sizable contingent walked undeveloped land owned by David Brown and Jody Anthes on Thursday and saw the impressive array of archaeological artifacts for themselves. Melissa Elkins, an archaeological consultant for the landowners, described why the find is significant.

“It’s definitely a bigger prehistoric site,” Elkins said. “The fact that there are a lot of tools suggests there were a lot of people here.”

While scores of artifacts are visible, similar to pottery shards at Anasazi sites in Utah, hundreds more might be covered by vegetation or buried, Elkins said.

Among those that are visible are arrowheads and spearheads of different sizes, which indicate that they were used to hunt different prey, she said. There is a partial blade of a quartzite knife. There are several scraping tools made of chert.

Elkins said the artifacts are from the most recent period of the Archaic Era, 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. The prehistoric Native American at that time moved around a lot. The Pitkin County site is likely a hunting camp — but one used intensively and possibly for a long period of time, she said. It is possible the people that used the site were ancestors of the Ute Indians, according to Elkins.

The owners don’t want the location disclosed because they don’t want to mess with looters or gawkers. Read more in the Aspen Times.

Parent volunteer and artist Kary Termain works Thursday, June 7, 2012, on a mural that is part of the redesigned library at The da Vinci Academy. Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE

Lisa Hancock of the Aspen Historical Society holds a tool made from chert. Numerous projectiles and tools have been found in rural Pitkin County. Photo by Scott Condon, The Aspen Times

Jim Prisching