This document and four parallel volumes, which collectively cover the entire state of Colorado, have been prepared by various organizations under contract to the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists. The respective regions addressed by the five documents are defined according to hydrologic criteria and coincide with the four major drainage basins within the state: Colorado River, Rio Grande, South Platte River, and Arkansas River. The headwaters of these four great rivers occur within the state of the Continental Divide. Becuase of the sheer size of the area, and also due to various cultural considerations, the Colorado River watershed has been divided into upper (northern) and lower (southern) regions, and thus fiver rather than four documents have been generated.

The Prehistory of Colorado and Adjacent Areas is a short, accessible account of the state's human past. Based on the archaeological record, this book reconstructs past lifeways using current theory and explanations. Using a regional, rather than site-specific approach, it presents current explanations of what prehistoric Coloradans did at various points in time and why they changed.