Archaeologist’s dream By Electa Draper , DenverPost.com

Can unspoiled Fremont villages on Utah ranch survive discovery?

[A]rchaeologists understand they are in a race with pot hunters and other thieves of history. Both are eager to find remnants of the prehistoric people who inhabited most of what is now Utah and some of western Colorado. The Fremont civilization, contemporaneous with the Anasazi, peaked around A.D. 900 to 1100 before it apparently disappeared. …

Range Creek does not have the spectacular cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and other Anasazi sites in the Four Corners. It does not appear like El Dorado rising from the rugged ledges of the towering Book Cliffs. To a nonarchaeologist’s eyes, it is a heap of stones under some junipers. It is ground littered with tiny pieces of broken pottery, stone tools and projectile points.

“It is spectacular on a small, intimate scale,” [Utah State Archaeologist Kevin] Jones says.