During the last several weeks I have been continuing field research in Range Creek, and also preparing a collection donated to the museum by Virgene and Mark Hansen, the wife and son of the late Keith Hansen. Barb Benson (nicknamed B2) has been helping me catalogue and begin the conservation and accessioning of these artifacts. We are very grateful to the Hansen family for their donation, which includes many artifacts previously on display at the museum, and some of the best examples of Fremont artifacts from eastern Utah, some still labeled with their original accession numbers.
The decision to deposit these artifacts at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum was difficult, but the Hansen Family decided it would be best to keep the artifacts together in a collection, in a location near the private lands where they were collected, and in a facility where they could be preserved and exhibited for the benefit of the people of eastern Utah. We are very impressed with how carefully many of these artifacts have been cared for, and will do our best to curate them for the public "in perpetuity.
Bill Heffner, paleontology assistant, and Lloyd Logan, education director, helped with the cataloguing and transfer of metates and manos to the museum. We are very grateful for their assistance and good company during the procedure. It was a lot of fun, and Virgene Hansen treated us to lunch from the local drive-inn. I had a great chocolate malt.
Range Creek
In Range Creek I recorded four additional cliff granaries, and did some excavating in Applique House at the Little Village site. The first rappel took me deep into a side canyon of Range Creek, accompanied by my new friend "Lucky," the three-legged bighorn sheep. Lucky is blind, so he wasn't much help with spotting the granary or with the rope set-up, but he was able to make the hike and rap' the 150 foot cliff with me. We collected maize, wood, and sediment samples from three granaries, and are hoping for several dates and pollen assays.
The second rap' was a 200 foot drop to record a spectacular cliff granary, and then an additional 50 foot rap' to get to get from the ledge below it past the next set of cliffs to the ground. After setting a single rope backed up on several very secure natural anchors, and using a self-belay device to record the adobe and masonry granary sans roof, I used a double rope/ATC set-up and rapped from a Douglas Fir tree on the lower ledge below the site. After several tries, I finally succeeding in pulling the rope behind me, as taught by Utah County Search and Rescue teams I worked with in Range Creek in 2004/05.
This week I also recorded several Archaic localities found by Craig Royce, an instructor at Pinnacle Academy. Mr. Royce has a keen eye for identifying artifacts and prehistoric remains, and is particularly good at identifying diagnostic projectile points from the early to mid- Holocene in the San Rafael Swell and throughout eastern Utah.
I am still conducting excavations in Range Creek, and looking for one or two additional volunteers for September 10-12 and September 24-26. If you are interested in helping out, contact me for details at renee.barlow@ceu.edu, or leave a message with your contact info and the best times to contact you at 435-613-5290. Please call early. I am a little overwhelmed since I am teaching an archaeology class at the college and I am also still going out into the field and camping 2-4 days per week-- with no cell phone or internet service-- so I will return you call or email as soon as I am back in town and get your message.
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
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