Archaeologist locates evidence in state of lost Indian culture By LORNA THACKERAY, billingsgazette.com

Fremont peoples flourished about the same time as the more famous Anasazi who built a sophisticated society farther south. Both cultures vanished almost simultaneously, creating a mystery for modern scientists to unravel.

“The Fremont people were around Utah and Colorado mostly from about 300 A.D. to 1200 A.D., then they disappeared,” Hadden said. “I mean they flat disappeared. No one knows what happened to them.”

The latest known site was a fortified structure built about 1500 in the White River area of Northwest Colorado.

Could finds near Bridger indicate that at least some people holding onto Fremont cultural traits moved north? Although he hasn’t yet submitted samples from the hearth for carbon-14 dating, he said the site appears to have been in use somewhere between 1400 and 1600 – before most historic Montana tribes had moved into the area, but after the disappearance of the Fremont culture from its documented range.

“Why were they here?” he asks. “This is 300 miles from the Fremont heartland.”

Was it an end point in a gradual migration? Were the people who used the hearth, probably for no more than a month, pushed north by drought? Were they evicted from by an expanding population of Ute?

Early in the development of the culture, Fremont peoples appeared, for the most part, to be peaceful, Hadden said. But evidence suggests that, in the final stages, they became more warlike. Headhunter motifs and shield-bearing warriors emerge in the rock art. Hadden noted that, between 1300 and 1400, the archaeological record of the area traditionally occupied by Fremont peoples indicates a “tremendous” increase in death by violence. That coincides with the time period when the Ute were moving in, he said.

Questions remain about whether the Fremont people were assimilated, annihilated or forced north by intruding people, Hadden said. Although moving was no small feat in the era before horses, the area south of Bridger would not have been too great a leap for people who are known to have roamed as far north as central Wyoming.

Hadden suspects a combination of environmental factors and aggressive newcomers may have resulted in a move north and a visit to southern Montana.