THE GNATS ARE OUT!

Spring is here and it has been busy in the Hall of Archaeology. Lots of visitors, and lots of work getting the Hansen Exhibit written, prepared and installed in the gallery, and beginning another field season.

Choosing and Preparing Artifacts for the Hansen Exhibit

Lots of New Visitors and Old Friends

A special shout out to my new friend Brent- thanks for visiting the museum and I hope you and your friends had a SWELL time!

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I spent a day with rock art expert David Sucec and photographer Craig Law looking at BCS and Fremont rock art near Capitol Reef and Escalante- what a treat!.

Range Creek is as beautiful as ever. The south road was clear in April, as usual, and the wildflowers as spectacular as they are every April and May, and I set up camp at my usual spot on BLM land in the lower canyon. I spent several days cleaning and photographing both the lower and upper sites, taking notes in preparation of continuing excavations, working at both ends of the canyon, and getting my field camp ready. Then I started work at the Burnout Village. I had some beautiful 70 degree days identifying surface artifacts, preparing for mapping with our new total station, and excavating a pithouse at the Burnout Village in the middle of the canyon. I have already seen three bears this year, in addition to deer, elk, and lots of hummingbirds, lizards and bright blue damsel flies along the creek.

My beautiful Range Creek camp in the south canyon.

The Burnout Village: I excavated nearly two cubic meters of fill on this site in May, and am trying to finish the excavation of the south half of a pithouse in the main group where we have found ceramics, projectile points, lithic debitage, whole beads, and a whole Fremont pipe, and our faunal analyst Robert Nash has identified jackrabbit, cottontail, bighorn sheep and other small and large mammals in the food remains, and choosing the excavation unit in a “tower” or circular masonry feature in the upper part of the site. Also flagging artifacts and features to continue mapping with our new total station. Two radiocarbon samples from the lowest cultural level excavated so far date to 1290+/- 15 and 1255+/- 20 BP, or approximately AD 670-850. They may be “old wood,” or we may have one of the oldest Fremont farming settlements in Range Creek, underneath one of the largest and latest Fremont settlements.

“Appliqué House” at Little Village in the north end of the canyon, where we have found two different occupation levels separated by 30-50 cm of fill, and hundreds of artifacts that include turquoise, appliqué pottery, grayware and painted pottery, a bone awl, mano, metate, stone ball, projectile points and debitage, stone and ceramic pendants, one charred maize kernel, and our faunal analyst has identified elk, jackrabbit, cottontail, mountain lion and other small, medium and large mammal remains. Our pollen analyst indicates that there is no maize pollen in several samples from the lowest floor and floor features, and that we are probably looking at a structure that was only used seasonally. This is a very large structure, with lots of artifacts! Radiocarbon samples from an ash-filled hearth with charcoal and faunal remains and a subfloor pit with part of an appliqué jar on the lowest floor date to 1290+/- 15 BP and 1198+/- 37 BP, or approximately AD 680-880, and a radiocarbon sample from charcoal found in contact with the upper floor dates to 995 +/- 15, or approximately AD 994-1195, contemporaneous with the cliff granaries and most other sites in Range Creek.

New Lock on the Range Creek Gate and a Tree Across the Road

K. Renee Barlow, PhD

Curator of Archaeology, Prehistoric Museum College of Eastern Utah

155 East Main

Price, Utah 84501