Located west of the confluence of the San Rafael and Green Rivers, the San Rafael Swell is the heart of prehistoric cultures in Eastern Utah. The archaeological record includes Paleoindian, Archaic, Fremont and Ute occupations, with large multiple component lithic quarries, hunting and special-use camps, farming villages and some of the most spectacular rock art in North America: galleries of Barrier Canyon and Fremont style pictographs and petroglyphs. This project documents the overall shape of the archaeological record of the San Rafael, and temporal variation in the extraction, transport and exchange of local toolstone materials.
The San Rafael Swell is an enormous anticline of tan and coral sandstones from the Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, dissected by dozens of valleys and rivers (Hintze 1988). Narrow slot canyons, cliff-bounded folds and reefs, and spectacular castles and knobs are commonplace. The geology, paleontology and archaeology of this region are phenomenal, and cultural remains include hundreds of rock art galleries from both the Archaic and Fremont periods.
Jurassic sandstone reef on the San Rafael Swell
Lesser known are the Paleoindian artifacts, Archaic hunting camps, lithic quarries, and Fremont farming villages of the San Rafael. Archaeological sites are as ubiquitous as the stunning geologic formations. In fact, this area was the heart of Barrier Canyon Archaic and San Rafael Fremont populations in eastern Utah. Hunting bighorn sheep on the Swell was an important part of both Archaic and Fremont economies, as evidenced by numerous rock art panels depicting Desert bighorn sheep, and the presence of Ovis canadensis remains in faunal assemblages.
Archaic projectile points, a flaked quartzite cobble and a basin metate from the Swell.
Kokopelli and Snakes on the west edge of the Swell
Previous studies include research by James Gunnerson (1957) and Kay Sargent (1977), and section 106 compliance work by James Adovasio, David Madsen (1975), Alan Schroedl, Kevin Black and Mike Metcalf (1986), Betsy Tipps (1988), and David Byers. Other important sites include Clyde's Cavern (42Em177), where early maize was found within the context of largely hunter-gatherer assemblages (Winter and Wylie 1974), stratified Archaic and Fremont assemblages beginning at 8,200 BP at Joes Valley Alcove (42Em693), located at the head of the San Rafael River on the west edge of the Swell (Barlow and Metcalfe 1993), and Archaic assemblages at Sudden Shelter (42Sv6) on the nearby Wasatch Plateau (Jennings et al. 1980).
Barrier Canyon style Archaic pictographs and one Fremont image (darker red) at Buckhorn Wash.
At many rock art sites in the San Rafael Swell, two-horned, trapezoidal Fremont anthropomorphs were painted beside, overlapping, or sometimes right over the top of earlier, Archaic images, suggesting to some a local transition from Barrier Canyon Style, created by peoples who hunted and gathered wild foods on the Swell for thousands of years, to the San Rafael Fremont, whose lifeways included the same suite of Archaic foods in addition to maize agriculture and other Formative technology.
By AD 700-1000 the Formative transition was well underway in the Swell. Hundreds of farming villages are found along the major drainages and tributaries of the San Rafael River and Muddy Creek. Maize appears to have been a very important crop at this time, and San Rafael hunters and farmers may have expanded east along major tributaries of the Green River such as Ninemile Canyon, Range Creek and Price River, and possibly south into the Moab/Canyonlands area. This may have resulted in more social encounters and/or increased economic exchange with Formative peoples from the Vernal and Puebloan regions.
Barrier Canyon style figures at Buckhorn Wash.
The San Rafael region was also an important source of toolstone for prehistoric peoples: local red, white and gray cherts and several types of chalcedony were extracted and transported to sites on the Swell and adjacent regions. Archaeological sites include quarry and processing sites littered with these materials, in addition to camps and habitation sites with lithic assemblages dominated by the local toolstone. Bifaces, projectile points and other tools were traded or carried into Range Creek, and possibly transported as far away as Vernal and Canyonlands National Park. Similarly, local Emery Gray pottery was exported to Ninemile and Range Creek Canyons, and Canyonlands National Park, while Uinta Gray pottery was imported from Vernal, and Tsegi Orangeware from the Kayenta or neighboring Puebloan regions.
Fremont Pithouse on a knoll above Muddy Creek.
The CEU San Rafael Archaeological Project began in March 2008 and includes investigations of lithic quarries, Archaic camps, rock art panels and Fremont sites in the Temple Mountain, Mussentuchit Basin, Molen Reef, Ivie Creek, Muddy Creek, San Rafael Desert, Price River and Range Creek areas. It is likely that the San Rafael Swell is the origin of Formative peoples who occupied Nine Mile Canyon and Range Creek. Archaic foragers from the Swell probably first included these canyons in annual subsistence rounds, hunting and collecting wild plant foods as San Rafael peoples had done for thousands of years, later cultivating small patches of maize alongside wild crops, and finally producing the well-known Fremont farming villages, rock art galleries and granaries of Nine Mile and Range Creek as some San Rafael groups established permanent or semi-permanent settlements circa AD 900-1200.
Stephanie Fitzsimons and Craig Royce at Temple Mountain, an in-situ lithic reduction assemblage at the John Bird site (ZMB-3) and a nearby quarry (ZMB-4).
During the next decade CEU archaeological research on the San Rafael Swell and adjacent regions will include investigations of the following hypotheses:
1) A local origin for the Fremont in this region, particularly the hypothesis that the people who produced Formative assemblages on the San Rafael were the descendants of the Archaic people who produced Barrier Canyon Style rock art in the canyons of the Swell and adjacent regions, via an economic transition that included the adoption of agricultural technology rather than a replacement of local populations by peoples from the south.
2) Ancient foragers and farmers of the San Rafael Swell were closely linked to the peoples who produced assemblages in Nine Mile Canyon and Range Creek, and may be the origin of the Fremont who produced farming settlements in those canyons during a population expansion to the south and east circa AD 900-1000.
3) The San Rafael Swell was an important source of toolstone for local Archaic and Fremont foragers and farmers, and during the Formative period these materials were quarried, processed, transported and exchanged with peoples in adjacent region, possibly indicating increased social/economic interdependence with Formative people in the Vernal and Moab/Canyonlands regions circa AD 1000-1200.
Archaic projectile points, a flaked quartzite cobble and a basin metate from the Swell.
Kokopelli and Snakes on the west edge of the Swell
Previous studies include research by James Gunnerson (1957) and Kay Sargent (1977), and section 106 compliance work by James Adovasio, David Madsen (1975), Alan Schroedl, Kevin Black and Mike Metcalf (1986), Betsy Tipps (1988), and David Byers. Other important sites include Clyde's Cavern (42Em177), where early maize was found within the context of largely hunter-gatherer assemblages (Winter and Wylie 1974), stratified Archaic and Fremont assemblages beginning at 8,200 BP at Joes Valley Alcove (42Em693), located at the head of the San Rafael River on the west edge of the Swell (Barlow and Metcalfe 1993), and Archaic assemblages at Sudden Shelter (42Sv6) on the nearby Wasatch Plateau (Jennings et al. 1980).
Barrier Canyon style Archaic pictographs and one Fremont image (darker red) at Buckhorn Wash.
At many rock art sites in the San Rafael Swell, two-horned, trapezoidal Fremont anthropomorphs were painted beside, overlapping, or sometimes right over the top of earlier, Archaic images, suggesting to some a local transition from Barrier Canyon Style, created by peoples who hunted and gathered wild foods on the Swell for thousands of years, to the San Rafael Fremont, whose lifeways included the same suite of Archaic foods in addition to maize agriculture and other Formative technology.
By AD 700-1000 the Formative transition was well underway in the Swell. Hundreds of farming villages are found along the major drainages and tributaries of the San Rafael River and Muddy Creek. Maize appears to have been a very important crop at this time, and San Rafael hunters and farmers may have expanded east along major tributaries of the Green River such as Ninemile Canyon, Range Creek and Price River, and possibly south into the Moab/Canyonlands area. This may have resulted in more social encounters and/or increased economic exchange with Formative peoples from the Vernal and Puebloan regions.
Barrier Canyon style figures at Buckhorn Wash.
The San Rafael region was also an important source of toolstone for prehistoric peoples: local red, white and gray cherts and several types of chalcedony were extracted and transported to sites on the Swell and adjacent regions. Archaeological sites include quarry and processing sites littered with these materials, in addition to camps and habitation sites with lithic assemblages dominated by the local toolstone. Bifaces, projectile points and other tools were traded or carried into Range Creek, and possibly transported as far away as Vernal and Canyonlands National Park. Similarly, local Emery Gray pottery was exported to Ninemile and Range Creek Canyons, and Canyonlands National Park, while Uinta Gray pottery was imported from Vernal, and Tsegi Orangeware from the Kayenta or neighboring Puebloan regions.
Fremont Pithouse on a knoll above Muddy Creek.
The CEU San Rafael Archaeological Project began in March 2008 and includes investigations of lithic quarries, Archaic camps, rock art panels and Fremont sites in the Temple Mountain, Mussentuchit Basin, Molen Reef, Ivie Creek, Muddy Creek, San Rafael Desert, Price River and Range Creek areas. It is likely that the San Rafael Swell is the origin of Formative peoples who occupied Nine Mile Canyon and Range Creek. Archaic foragers from the Swell probably first included these canyons in annual subsistence rounds, hunting and collecting wild plant foods as San Rafael peoples had done for thousands of years, later cultivating small patches of maize alongside wild crops, and finally producing the well-known Fremont farming villages, rock art galleries and granaries of Nine Mile and Range Creek as some San Rafael groups established permanent or semi-permanent settlements circa AD 900-1200.
Stephanie Fitzsimons and Craig Royce at Temple Mountain, an in-situ lithic reduction assemblage at the John Bird site (ZMB-3) and a nearby quarry (ZMB-4).
During the next decade CEU archaeological research on the San Rafael Swell and adjacent regions will include investigations of the following hypotheses:
1) A local origin for the Fremont in this region, particularly the hypothesis that the people who produced Formative assemblages on the San Rafael were the descendants of the Archaic people who produced Barrier Canyon Style rock art in the canyons of the Swell and adjacent regions, via an economic transition that included the adoption of agricultural technology rather than a replacement of local populations by peoples from the south.
2) Ancient foragers and farmers of the San Rafael Swell were closely linked to the peoples who produced assemblages in Nine Mile Canyon and Range Creek, and may be the origin of the Fremont who produced farming settlements in those canyons during a population expansion to the south and east circa AD 900-1000.
3) The San Rafael Swell was an important source of toolstone for local Archaic and Fremont foragers and farmers, and during the Formative period these materials were quarried, processed, transported and exchanged with peoples in adjacent region, possibly indicating increased social/economic interdependence with Formative people in the Vernal and Moab/Canyonlands regions circa AD 1000-1200.
The Green Family discovered and helped record sherds from an Emery Gray jar at the Cliff Green site near the Wedge
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to John Bird, Bill Heffner, Mark Connolly, Alan Green, Tom McCourt, Waldo Wilcox, Ray Jones, Chanel Atwood, Craig Royce, Cliff and Eileen Green, Lannie and Glenys Sitterud, and Craig Harmon for generously sharing information about archaeological sites in the Swell and adjacent regions, to Blaine Miller and the Price BLM office, and to the College of Eastern Utah for ongoing support.
Bill Heffner comes through the slot to an archaic camp with rock art (ZMB2).
Rock art panel at ZPR2, a paleosite with dinosaur bones, rock art and artifacts
References
Barlow, K. Renee, Ronald H. Towner and Mathew W. Salzer
2008 The Fremont Granaries of Range Creek: Defensive Maize Storage on the Northern Colorado Plateau. In press, American Antiquity.
Barlow, K. Renee, Ronald H. Towner and Mathew W. Salzer
2007 Archaeology of the Range Creek Fremont. In Press, Utah Archaeology.
Barlow, K. Renee and Duncan Metcalfe
1993 The 1990 Excavation of Joes Valley Alcove. University of Utah Archaeological Center Report 93-1, Salt Lake City.
Gunnerson, James H.
1957 An Archaeological Survey of the Fremont Area. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 28, Salt Lake City.
Hintze, Lehi F.
1988 Geologic History of Utah: A Field Guide to Utah’s Rocks. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, Special Publication No. 7, Provo.
Madsen, David B.
1975 Three Fremont Sites in Emery County, Utah. Antiquities Section Selected Papers No 1, Salt Lake City.
Marwitt, John P.
1970 Median Village and Fremont Regional Variation. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 95, Salt Lake City.
Black, Kevin D. and Michael D. Metcalf
1986 The Castle Valley Archaeological Project: An Inventory and Predictive Model of Selected Tracts. BLM Cultural Resource Series 19, Salt Lake City.
Sargent, Kay
1977 Emery County: An Archaeological Assessment.
Tipps, Betsy L.
1988 The Tar Sands Project: An Inventory and Predictive Model for Central and Southern Utah. BLM Cultural Resource Series 22, Salt Lake City.
Winter, Joseph C. and H. G. Wylie
1974 Paleoecology and Diet at Clyde’s Cavern. American Antiquity 39 (2): 303-315.
The Rochester Panel in the San Rafael Swell includes both Archaic and Fremont figures.
Renee Barlow, Ph.D.
Curator of Archaeology
College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum
451 East 400 North, Price, Utah 84501
phone/voicemail 435-613-5290
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to John Bird, Bill Heffner, Mark Connolly, Alan Green, Tom McCourt, Waldo Wilcox, Ray Jones, Chanel Atwood, Craig Royce, Cliff and Eileen Green, Lannie and Glenys Sitterud, and Craig Harmon for generously sharing information about archaeological sites in the Swell and adjacent regions, to Blaine Miller and the Price BLM office, and to the College of Eastern Utah for ongoing support.
Bill Heffner comes through the slot to an archaic camp with rock art (ZMB2).
Rock art panel at ZPR2, a paleosite with dinosaur bones, rock art and artifacts
References
Barlow, K. Renee, Ronald H. Towner and Mathew W. Salzer
2008 The Fremont Granaries of Range Creek: Defensive Maize Storage on the Northern Colorado Plateau. In press, American Antiquity.
Barlow, K. Renee, Ronald H. Towner and Mathew W. Salzer
2007 Archaeology of the Range Creek Fremont. In Press, Utah Archaeology.
Barlow, K. Renee and Duncan Metcalfe
1993 The 1990 Excavation of Joes Valley Alcove. University of Utah Archaeological Center Report 93-1, Salt Lake City.
Gunnerson, James H.
1957 An Archaeological Survey of the Fremont Area. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 28, Salt Lake City.
Hintze, Lehi F.
1988 Geologic History of Utah: A Field Guide to Utah’s Rocks. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, Special Publication No. 7, Provo.
Madsen, David B.
1975 Three Fremont Sites in Emery County, Utah. Antiquities Section Selected Papers No 1, Salt Lake City.
Marwitt, John P.
1970 Median Village and Fremont Regional Variation. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 95, Salt Lake City.
Black, Kevin D. and Michael D. Metcalf
1986 The Castle Valley Archaeological Project: An Inventory and Predictive Model of Selected Tracts. BLM Cultural Resource Series 19, Salt Lake City.
Sargent, Kay
1977 Emery County: An Archaeological Assessment.
Tipps, Betsy L.
1988 The Tar Sands Project: An Inventory and Predictive Model for Central and Southern Utah. BLM Cultural Resource Series 22, Salt Lake City.
Winter, Joseph C. and H. G. Wylie
1974 Paleoecology and Diet at Clyde’s Cavern. American Antiquity 39 (2): 303-315.
The Rochester Panel in the San Rafael Swell includes both Archaic and Fremont figures.
Renee Barlow, Ph.D.
Curator of Archaeology
College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum
451 East 400 North, Price, Utah 84501
phone/voicemail 435-613-5290
1 comments:
Cool, I don't look at the ground enough to realize whats there.
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