Bones, plants, pollen and their associated materials are important to the archaeological record in terms of reconstructing past life ways of peoples, because they can tell archaeologists what people were eating and the season (fall, spring, summer) a site was being occupied. the age of animals represented in a faunal assemblage coupled with assumptions of their season of birth establish a site’s “seasonality.” likewise, the modern fruiting schedules of plants represented in sites by their seeds or other edible components suggest when a site was occupied. plant sources include macrobotanical remains (e. g., charred seeds recovered by flotation), phytoliths (silica nodules found in some plant stems), pollen, coprolites (preserved human feces), and lipids extracted from pottery. each source has its strengths and weaknesses. macrobotanical remains can be abundant, but it is not always clear if they represent food; coprolites clearly contain the remains of meals, but they are very short-term records. people’s interaction with the environment has an economic basis, but culture may place layers of symbolic meaning on top of that interaction. because different plant species produce differently shaped pollens, we can identify ancient vegetation by identifying pollen (links to an external site.)links to an external site. in archaeological sites. samples are prepared and the pollen counted under a microscope. the varying percentages of pollen in the samples roughly track the varying percentages of the different plant species that produced them. pollen is good at reconstructing the regional environment; the palynologist must take measures to ensure that the results are not biased by a local environment’s pollen. other sources of information, such as wood rat nests (links to an external site.)links to an external site., provide evidence of local vegetation. generally speaking, archaeologists assume that mobile peoples like hunters and gatherers exploit the areas close to their sites, also known as the catchment area (links to an external site.)links to an external site., for their daily subsistence. site catchment analysis (links to an external site.)links to an external site. rests on the assumption that the further the resource area is from the site, the less likely will be its exploitation (the costs in terms of time and effort would simply be too great). based on ethnoarchaeological (links to an external site.)links to an external site. research among modern hunter-gatherers, archaeologist generally examine a 5 km radius (the area that can be reached in approximately 1 hour’s walk) and 10 km radius (area that can be reached in approximately 2 hour’s walk). on a map, two circles are drawn around the site (one with a 5 km radius and one with a 10 km radius) to determine what resources would have been available to the inhabitants of the site at different times of the year. this information, combined with information about the distribution of sites across the landscape, allows us to reconstruct the seasonal movement across the landscape through the course of a year. exercise: use the following information presented as a map of eastern colorado showing the location of eight sites spread between the plains, foot hills and mountains and the floral and faunal material recovered from them. in addition, the attached table of resources and availability is about common flora and fauna in eastern colorado and the seasons they can be harvested. reconstruct the seasonal movement across the landscape of the people using these eight sites – provide a narrative and in your answer describe when people are at each site and their movement from one site to the next during the different seasons of the year. in addition, create a chart or table illustrating what you discovered which includes when the remains that were recovered from each site would have been available during the year (june, july upload your chart or table and the narrative which contains the description of your reconstruction of seasonal movement across the landscapes provided on the map to canvas.