During 2008 the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Glenwood Springs (GSFO), Grand Junction (GJFO), and Uncompahgre (UFO) Field Offices in Colorado conducted a Ute Ethnohistory Project in collaboration with the three Ute Tribes that traditionally lived on lands within the field offices' administrative boundaries. The project brought together representatives of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation (Northern Utes), the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe with BLM field office cultural resource staff and managers.
The project was intended to support agency plans for future cultural resource management in the three participating BLM field offices by documenting current Ute heritage needs. Project activities included site visits by Ute tribal representatives and BLM staff on public lands managed by the BLM in each of the three field offices, and a review and synthesis of existing historical, ethnographic and archaeological data pertaining to Ute heritage in the study area. Dominquez Archaeological Research Group (DARG), a non-profit cultural resources research consortium headquartered in Grand Junction, provided research support, project coordination, and report preparation.