In 1982, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management contracted with Professor James H. Gunnerson to write an overview of a large area defined as the Central High Plains, a region encompassing eastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, western Kansas, western Nebraska, the Texas panhandle, and parts of Oklahoma. The purpose to this study is to provide a baseline narrative for the prehistory in this region in order to enable land managing agencies like the Forest Service and the BLM to understand the extent of prehistoric resources that might be present on these federal lands.