ABQjournal: Mesa Verde Slowly Revealing Secrets of Anasazi Culture By James Abarr, For the Journal

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, Colo — Rising sharply between the Mancos and Montezuma valleys of southwest Colorado, the broad escarpment of Mesa Verde beckons with a promise of adventure and mystery.

With cliffs soaring 2,000 feet above ridges and grassy plains, the mesa — 25 miles long — offers a feast for the senses as well as the eyes. Along its piñon-juniper ridges and in its plunging canyons are hundreds of surface pueblos, cliff dwellings, stone towers and pithouses attesting to a time when a prehistoric Indian people called the great mesa home.

They were the Anasazi, who abandoned Mesa Verde more than 700 years ago, but to present-day Indian people of the Four Corners region and the Middle Rio Grande Valley, the Anasazi have never left. They believe the spirits of their ancestors still inhabit the mesa. …

[T]he cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, although occupied for a relatively brief span, rank as amazing examples of Anasazi building skills. There was no formal plan or design for these stunning structures [mjh: an odd presumption]. They were simply constructed to match the topography of the great alcoves. Thus the dwellings are similar, and yet, each is different.

Sandstone, widely available in the area, was the basic building material. This soft, porous material was carefully shaped into rectangular blocks and laid in rows cemented by mud mortar. Walls were then coated with plaster and often decorated with painted designs.

Square house blocks, some three stories high, were accompanied by square or round tower dwellings and many kivas, or recessed ceremonial chambers.

This is another of James Abarr’s excellent stories; there is much more here than I can quote (unfortunately, a subscription is required to read the article at abqjournal.com). For once, abqjournal has even let the photos appear online. mjh

other articles on southwestern ruins by James Abarr

ABQjournal: Prof Sheds Light on Origins of Kokopelli By David Steinberg, Journal Book Editor

“Kokopelli— The Making of an Icon”
By Ekkehart Malotki
University of Nebraska Press, $19.95, 161 pp.

Kookopölö, he says, is a Hopi kachina from which the name kokopelli is taken.

The image of the fluteplayer in rock art first appeared in the Four Corners area about A.D. 800 and died out about A.D. 1600. …

Malotki says the image that is most widespread today is from Hohokam pottery fragments from southern Arizona that date from about A.D. 1000. “The reason for this predilection appears obvious: It is ‘safe,’ for it lacks the exposed genitals,” he writes.

BLM lives with legacy of ‘chaining’ By Dan D’Ambrosio, Herald Staff Writer, Durango Herald Online

From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the Bureau of Land Management was pursuing a policy of converting the high desert woodland of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument near Cortez into grass-filled pastures for grazing cows.

They called it “site conversion,” an experiment that was doomed to failure – a failure the bureau is today trying to rectify by restoring the “converted” areas to their former natural state.

Thirty-plus years ago, the bureau used a simple, but effective, technique called “chaining” to transform the dry, red-soiled landscape of the monument from piñon pines, juniper and sagebrush to pastures. Chaining involved two bulldozers and a length of anchor chain, sometimes with large chunks of iron welded onto the enormous links. The dozer operators would stretch the anchor chain between them and drag it across the ground, ripping out everything in their path.

“Often they would turn around and drag the reverse way,” said Leslie Stewart, an ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service who works on the monument. “It’s not pretty at all.”

The chained piñons and junipers were bulldozed into windrows and burned, creating a fire so intense it sterilized the soil, Stewart said. Then the bureau would seed the ground with non-native grasses, mostly crested wheatgrass.

About 9 percent of the 164,000-acre monument was chained, according to Monument Land Use Planner Steve Kandell, amounting to some 15,000 acres.

“Those days in the BLM the name of the game was more production,” Stewart said. “If you had piñons and junipers out there, knock them down and plant grass.”

Stewart said chaining was done on BLM land throughout the West. Thousands of acres of piñon and juniper country were chained in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon and New Mexico, in addition to Colorado.

In the harsh environment of Canyons of the Ancients, the crested wheatgrass and other non-native grasses never established themselves. The pastures never materialized, and instead, today’s monument is left with acres of bare earth populated only by the piñons and juniper that have grown back. The native grasses, forbs and shrubs that would normally provide cover, and prevent erosion, are gone.

“You cannot do that to nature, it will always backfire on you,” said Stewart.

When the native plants were removed from the chained areas, the wildlife went with them.

“There’s almost nothing living out here in the chained areas,” said LouAnn Jacobson, the manager of Canyons of the Ancients.

Jacobson said that without the habitat, and food, provided by native plants, even the rabbits had all but disappeared from the chained areas.

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.

Ruins’ holes mark solstice By BRIAN AHNMARK, Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc.

The Hohokam could easily be considered prehistoric astronomers.

Researchers and visitors alike have long questioned the significance of mysterious holes bored through the walls of the Big House at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.

The holes – five in the east wall, one in the south, one north, and two west – appear to serve as a primitive seasonal calendar, indicating the spring and autumn equinoxes as well as summer solstice and lunar events. However, researchers can merely speculate what purpose this celestial understanding served for the Hohokam culture, which flourished about 700 years ago.

CGRNM Ranger Denise Shultz defines four major astronomical holes: a summer solstice alignment hole in the north end of the west wall, a lunar alignment hole in the south end of the west wall, and towering four stories high in the center room of the Casa Grande are the spring and fall equinox holes – one in the east wall, one in the west.

“The summer and lunar events are a little more difficult to see happen because there aren’t any floors anymore, so you’re not at the right viewing level,” Shultz said. “But the equinox alignment is still visible.”

Just after sunrise, a beam projected through the east wall hole onto the west wall slowly approaches and then aligns perfectly with the west hole. This happens around the spring and fall equinoxes each year. Shultz said that the timing isn’t always exact, but the alignment does only occur two days a year. …

In 1969, the Southwestern Archaeological Center contracted John Molloy, an anthropology graduate student at the University of Arizona, to investigate the supposed seasonal holes.

Along with D.H Kayser, an assistant ranger at the Ruins, Molloy identified 14 lunar and solar holes. They discovered that two east wall holes align with the sun during the spring and fall equinoxes approximately 15 minutes after sunrise, on March 7 and October 7 of every year. They also observed the setting sun of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, align with a hole in the west wall of the Casa Grande. This event continues to occur around June 21.

Molloy argued that the celestial implications of the holes showed Mesoamerican influence, but did not suggest a meaning or use for the solar and lunar data that the Hohokam may have observed. The Hohokam culture disappeared around 1450 A.D., leaving no explanation for the mysterious holes in the Casa Grande.

The Mayor of Ketchum had this to say: ”[O]ur economic vitality is the mountains around us. Wilderness designation required very little federal action and no federal money. … When I get stressed from day-to-day life here, I simply go north to the mountains for rejuvenation. I want you to know Congressman, that more wilderness means less Zantac, less Tums, Less aspirin.”

Long-hidden treasure may unlock mysteries By Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News

The Fremont were the last Indian culture inhabiting the area, but had vanished by about A.D. 1250.

That’s about the same time the Anasazi left the Mesa Verde area. Although the two cultures lived in Utah and western Colorado at the same time, researchers haven’t found evidence of a close relationship, Jones said.

“There are a few blended sites with both types of artifacts, but whether they lived there at the same time, we don’t know,” said Jones. “They may or may not have spoken the same language. We just don’t know.”

Range Creek Canyon is definitely Fremont territory, he said, based on the abundant rock art, basketry and pottery that two years of surveys, mapping and site identification have found.

So far, no cliff dwellings like those at Mesa Verde or Anasazi relics have been found.

The Fremont made leather booties, similar to moccasins, while the Anasazi wore sandals woven from grasses and plants. Gray pottery and finely woven baskets also distinguish the Fremont, he said.

Range Creek, good for fishing, wading and watering both livestock and wildlife, nourished Fremont vegetable gardens of corn, squash, pumpkins and beans. Elsewhere in Utah, the Fremont built small dams and dug canals to water crops.

Researchers could find unmarred remains of irrigation systems in Range Creek, he said. Another project involves growing the distinctive “dented” corn seed found at the site and other Fremont settlements in Utah to find any genetic kinship.

All early cultures grew up around rivers – the Nile, the Ganges, the Amazon – and America’s first people likewise settled near water. With its high walls, water supply and wild game, Range Creek Canyon was a natural home to Indian ancestors.

In Range Creek, the Fremont lived in small clusters, possibly family-based, and in villages within visual range of one or two other settlements, said Jones. Deer, waterfowl, fish, small game and wild grain completed their diet, he said.

Circles of backpack-sized rocks mark the pit houses, where six to 30 Fremont lived. The living space was dug three or four feet into the ground and grasses were woven into tree limbs that formed roofs.

“Each of the pit houses was sealed when the roofs collapsed,” said Jerry Spangler, an archaeologist who has run the College of Eastern Utah’s field school at the site, sketching, measuring and mapping the surface.

“Under the ground is evidence of the daily life of the Fremont exactly as they left it,” said Spangler, whose crews have documented 225 sites. “It’s like a book waiting to be opened.”

Warm and dry in winter, the pit houses were a step above caves, said Spangler. In a survey of a single square mile, the graduate students who are the foot soldiers of archaeology have found six villages.

Scattered over the site are bright flags marking pottery pieces and rose, brown and white chips from arrow, spear and knife blades. Jones said the Fremont stone knappers fashioned points that could fly a fair distance and inflict a deadly wound.

At this site, archaeologists could find earlier arrowheads and projectile points that help advance knowledge of the development of hunting tools.

Scientists at other Fremont sites have found shell beads from the Pacific, copper beads from Mexico and obsidian from southern Idaho. Jones said Range Creek may hold clues to a major trade network that looters have stripped from other sites.

Jones is sure of one thing: The Fremont of Range Creek lived in fear. The evidence is in the inaccessible granaries high up on the sandstone canyon walls.

“People would not go to this kind of trouble to build granaries if they weren’t afraid,” he said. “They wouldn’t have lived somewhere this remote. We haven’t found cliff dwellings, but they could be up there farther than we’ve looked.”

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.

Ancient Indian villages revealed in Utah By Paul Foy

The half-buried houses don’t have the grandeur of New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon or Colorado’s Mesa Verde, where overhanging cliffs shelter stacked stone houses. But they are remarkable in that they hold a treasure of information about the Fremont culture that has been untouched by looters.

[more photos with article]

Irresistable allure of Utah’s ‘little jewel’ of archaeology By Deborah Frazier

Ancient, granary-rich Indian villages attract some bad seeds, too.

Archaeologists estimate that thousands of Fremont Indian villages are preserved on Wilcox’s land, along with pit houses, weapons, pottery, tools and human remains. And while the Book Cliffs stone-pit houses lack the flash and grandeur of some of the Southwest’s other big monuments, their pristine condition promises scientists an unspoiled view of ancient life.

“This isn’t as spectacular as Mesa Verde’s cliff houses and ruins. But this is a little jewel,” said Kevin Jones, Utah’s state archaeologist.

As the state of Utah takes over his 4,200-acre ranch located 130 miles southeast of Great Salt Lake, Wilcox worries about thieves.

“I knew that, when it became public, it would become like all the other canyons around here, where the looters take everything,” said Waldo, 74, who sold the ranch for $2.5 million.

On Wednesday, he learned looting has already begun since June 25, when news of the archaeological treasure became public – along with word of the sale.

For years, Wilcox warded off would-be thieves with a sharp eye, a shotgun and heavy gates. …

The artifacts can explain much about the lives of the Fremont, who lived in the canyon from A.D. 900 to A.D. 1250. Archaeologists also hope to learn about the Fremont’s predecessors, who may have arrived as early as 4,500 years ago.

In nooks with rock overhangs, artwork, painted with native plants or pecked into the stone, is abundant. Snakes dance, as do tiny trapezoidal figures adorned with necklaces and apronlike skirts. Also visible are bear paws, horned sheep, antelope and other animals.

Above the valley floor, sometimes as high as 1,000 feet, are multichambered grain storage bins of stone and mortar. Jones said rock slabs were cut by the Fremont and fit over the top to seal the bins. He said several of the granaries surveyed still contain corncobs with seeds.

Within the ranch are probably thousands of Fremont villages of multiple pit houses, rock-walled structures dug into the ground and covered with tree stems and grass to keep out the rain, that were able to house five to 25 people, Jones said.

“We’ve documented about 225 sites, and it’s just scratching the surface,” Jones said. “There are hundreds of other sites.”

Tribes say Range Creek decisions exclude them By Greg Lavine and Elizabeth Neff

Archaeologists quietly spent the past two years exploring a remarkable and secret community of Fremont Indian sites in eastern Utah’s Range Creek. Now, some American Indian groups say they were too quiet and secret. …

The three Utah tribes that have claimed Fremont ancestry are the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, the Paiute Indian Tribe and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The other tribes are the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, based in Idaho; in Arizona, the Hopi Tribe and the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians of the Kaibab Indian Reservation; and four Pueblo bands from New Mexico.

Ah, Wilderness!: Wilcox Ranch in Range Creek, Central Utah