Eskapalia to Flemingsburg

Once the traveler has traversed the Eskalapia's ridge, the landscape changes dramatically. The hills fall 
off to the east and and a rolling area of "knobs" is revealed. This is now open farmland with small communities
interspersed along the way, but in an earlier era it would have been a vast forest. Today, we drive across
open country and as the highway rises and  falls over the rolling landscape, it is easy to glance to the east
and see what appears to be an almost unbroken series of low hills. One hill is notable, in that it is set away
from the ridge-line running north to south. Sugarloaf Mountain is quite distinctive, and is in effect a
landmark that would have signaled the north-bound traveler that he had reached the point where it was time
to leave the knobs portion of the trail and to turn northeast over the hills to reach the valley of
Salt Lick Creek and thence on to the Ohio. Sugarloaf would have been easily viewable through any break in
the forest canopy, and once detected, the traveler would have turned here, and after a walk of a few hours, the
familiar profile of Eskalapia would have come into view.

To the southbound traveler, Sugarloaf may have been a resting point on the trail south. It probably took the 
better part of a days walking to reach Sugarloaf from the Ohio River, and either Eskalapia or 
Sugarloaf would have been a natural resting point to anyone traveling either direction. It would be
unsurprising to find many Native American archeological artifacts in this area.

Having said that, there is an alternative environment that could have existed before or after the one  
I just described. It is well known that ancestral Native Americans made extensive use of fire to modify 
their environment. They understood that the grazing animals on which so much of their well-being depended 
were grazing animals, and were far more attracted to open grass and meadow-lands. The forested knobs areas 
of Kentucky would have made ideal hunting lands if they were put to the torch, cleared of their natural 
cover. In a short span of time, grasses and other ground covers would dominate, and bison from west of the 
Mississippi would be drawn in. Serendipitously, clearing away the forest from this particular area would 
have eventually given large numbers of animals access to the Ohio River basin, and in time, spread the buffalo 
cultures far to the east and north, not only spreading buffalo management culture to Ohio, but to 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and other areas of mid-south America.

Again, we are wrong to think of these these somewhat less technologically people as being less imaginative, 
less resourceful or less able to shape their environment to their advantage than the modern peoples who 
now, for a time, occupy this landscape.