The Dirt on Archaeology

The Dirt on Archaeology: San Rafael Swell Part II

2010-10-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

This fall I have been busy with the inventory of special collections, working on NAGPRA compliance issues, and continuing field investigations of Barrier Canyon and Fremont sites on the San Rafael Swell. Our new archaeology collections volunteer is Yvonne Wilson, and she is helping with cataloging and inventory.

I have given talks about the archaeology of Range Creek to archaeological societies in Durango and Cortez, Colorado, and am presenting the results of the Range Creek Archaeological Project and OSL flute dates at the Great Basin Anthropological Conference.

Lithic Sources on the Swell

In the field, I am finding a lot of natural cherts and chalcedony occurring in the Morrison and Summerville Formations, overlying Navajo Sandstone along the edge of the reef. Archaeological sites are found wherever the materials are exposed, and it looks like the Native peoples that inhabited the Swell during the Archaic and Formative periods used these areas as quarries for material to make their projectiles, hammerstones, knives, scrapers, and other tools.

Barrier Canyon Style Project/Backpacking the Swell

I spent several days camping and recording archaeological sites with the BCS group: Rock Art Specialist David Sucec, USU artist/photographer Craig Law, Virginia Art Professor Jim Farmer, and guide Morris Wolf. We hiked in several miles and set up a camp, then hiked about 4 to 7 miles per day from camp to find the rock art panels and other sites. These scholars and authors of "Sacred Images" have probably seen and documented more Barrier Canyon Style rock art sites than anyone, and it is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with them. Even the arguments are quite informative. I have been "schooled" about the difference between Barrier Canyon, "classic" Fremont, and mixed styles, and am still learning. It is like a Prehistoric Art History course.

UVU Honors Archaeology Interns

Allen Hill, the Honors Program Coordinator with Utah Valley University, returned with a group of 16 students this fall to help record rock art on the Swell. Camp aids Ali and Dylan Dastrup quickly set up camp at the edge of the San Rafael Reef, and we hiked in to record Archaic lithics and Barrier Canyon Style pictographs in the Old Woman area of the Swell. The hike was long, and everybody helped pack in water, food and equipment. The students spent hours measuring, drawing, photographing and filling out IMACS forms for the rock art panels. The interns were awesome, and found lots of additional rock art and lithic artifacts at the site, as well as several projectile points, including an Elko point! The days were hot, the food was great, and I really enjoyed spending time with this crew.

Nine Mile Canyon Stewardship

The Nine Mile Canyon Site Stewardship began, and we spent several days in the classroom and on site training with Price Field Office archaeologist Blaine Miller. The archaeology in the canyon is fantastic! Look for more opportunities to volunteer for Site Stewardship training and help us with the documentation of these amazing sites.

K. Renee Barlow, PhD

Curator of Archaeology, Prehistoric Museum

College of Eastern Utah

155 East Main

Price, Utah 84501

The San Rafael Swell Archaeological Project

2010-08-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am recording Archaic-age Barrier Canyon Style rock art, lithic scatters and quarries, and other sites the San Rafael Swell, continuing the project started in 2008 and 2009. Some sites just need additional information about rock art panels or archaeological components, others have not been documented yet and are being mapped with a Trimble gps and recorded using IMACS. Days are hot, but beautiful, with occasional pockets of water in the sandstone.

I am investigating the relationship between local Archaic/Barrier Canyon sites and the Fremont of the San Rafael area, the use of local lithic sources for making stone tools, and how use of the landscape changed over time. Most of the sites investigated so far appear to date from about 5000 to 3000 years ago, and are likely associated with the same Archaic hunter-gatherers who made the galleries of beautiful hematite figures at the more famous sites such as Buckhorn Wash, Head of Sinbad, and Horseshoe Canyon.

Other sites include Fremont villages overlooking the Muddy River or Ivie Creek. Some of these have already been vandalized or previously excavated, and now we are documenting relationships to other sites. Still other sites are simply large scatters of lithic artifacts that were used over and over again by Archaic hunters throughout the last 5000 years, or earlier, and may have also been used by later Fremont farmers and Ute hunters.

One site appears to be a processing site for seeds, and probably represents the activities of a group of women, out harvesting, winnowing and preparing wild grains such as Indian rice-grass along a small water channel on the edge of the reef.

I am looking for 3-6 volunteers to help out in the field on Thursday and Friday, September 16/17, camping out overnight on the Swell. For more information, email me at renee.barlow@ceu.edu or call 435-613-5290 and leave a message with your phone number and the best time to reach you.

K. Renee Barlow, PhD

Curator of Archaeology, Prehistoric Museum

College of Eastern Utah

155 East Main

Price, Utah 84501

THE GNATS ARE OUT!

2010-06-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

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!

)

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

The Dirt on Archaeology.....March 2010

2010-03-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

The Mickelsen Pot In-Situ on the Manti-La Sal National Forest

I have been busier than expected this winter with new projects! The week before Christmas I was contacted by Forest Service Archaeologist Charmaine Thompson about a new find in the Manti-La Sal Forest. Wildlife Officer Casey Mickelsen found a whole jar in an alcove, and we went up with more than a dozen volunteers from the Forest Service, CVAS, and the entire Mickelsen Family to excavate the site.

The Mickelsen Family: Tori, Taylie, Casey and Kylan

The pot was "in-situ," meaning it was still in the location that it had been cached approximately by an ancient Fremont farmer in Emery County. Because Casey Mickelsen reported it, we were able to record its location, collect detailed information about the context of the artifact and found an associated artifact, a juniper mat, that we radiocarbon dated. The $595 date was sponsored by the Skyline Mine of Helper, Utah, and now we know that the jar was cached in this location by Fremont people around 830 years ago, and dates to between AD 1165 and 1260!

The Mickelsen Pot had been buried in the alcove 830 years ago, probably by a Fremont farmer who intended to retrieve it but for some reason never returned. But by the time Officer Mickelesen found it, nature had begun excavating the pot. The floor and ceiling of the natural sandstone alcove were eroding, and the sediments around the pot had washed away, tipping the pot toward the mouth of the alcove and leaving only a few cm at the bottom still buried. The pot is gobular, and would likely have washed downhill and out of the alcove in the spring run-off, and we would have lost this precious artifact forever. The top portion of the pot that was exposed to the erosion required many hours of conservation and stabilization to preserve the design, and the wall of the vessel.

The design is a black-on-white motif with black bands and white interlocking spirals. The white design is actually created by the space left beneath the black paint, a sophisticated, negative design typical of the Tusayan region of the Hitsatisinom, or Puebloan culture. It is most common between about AD 1200 and 1300 from the Grand Canyon through northern Arizona and into the four-corners. Tusayan wares were widely traded throughout the Pueblo world. We have recorded other Tusayan wares on dozens of sites in Emery County, including Tusayan Black-on-White and Tusayan Orangeware and Polychrome, but this a rare design style in Fremont region of the northern San Rafael. But while the design is certainly Tusayan, the region that the pot was manufactured has yet to be determined. It does not exhibit the typical crushed sherd temper found in nearly all other Tusayan Black-on-White wares, and may have been made locally.

We constructed a new exhibit case in the museum gallery, and announced the discovery at the February CVAS meeting. If you haven't been the museum lately, stop by to see it! The exhibit features a photo show by museum photographer and Paleodude John Bird, and graphic design by our Public Relations and advertising guru Christine Trease. The pot and the radiocarbon-dated juniper pot rest are currently on display, although we are taking the pot on a road trip in a few weeks to extract samples of microscopic pollen, starch grains and phytoliths so we can find out what a Fremont woman stored or cooked in the vessel 830 years ago.....stay tuned for more info!

Assistant Registrar Barb Benson

Barb Benson, current president of the Castle Valley UFOP chapter, is the new assistant registrar/temporary collections manager at the museum. Barb is working on the accession and registration of more than 2300 artifacts from the Keith Hansen collection, including projectile points and bifaces, ground stone, pottery, animal hides, bone whistles, beads and tools, and wooden tools, which she also helped catalog and pack at the Hansen home prior to bringing to the museum. She is a lot of fun to work with and has brought a high level of competency and organization to collections, and has already mastered our NPS computer cataloging system.

Barb Benson (B²) at the "Gooseneck Site"

The Pilling Site

In March I was invited by Bud Pilling to give a talk about the Pilling Site at the Masonic Temple, and had the privilege of recounting the story of traveling to the site with the Pilling Family, recording the site for BLM, collecting tree-ring samples and dating the site of the famous Pilling Figurines.

The Pilling Figurine Exhibit in the Hall of Archaeology

Clarence Pilling was a rancher in Range Creek who discovered the Pilling Site in March, 1950, and this is the 60^th anniversary of his discovery. He brought the figurines to Geneve Oliver, who took them on a road trip to Dr. Neil Judd at the Smithsonian, and J. O. Brew and Noel Morss at the Peabody Museum of Harvard. The Pilling figurines became famous and were featured in several National Geographic articles, and one of the Papers of the Peabody Museum in the 1950s. They have been studied and exhibited since the 1950s in Price, Washington DC, Cambridge and Salt Lake City, and are probably the most well-known and well-traveled figurines of the Southwest.


	The Original Eleven Pilling Figurines Photo (photo courtesy of the Pilling Family):

Note the Elaborate Male Figurine, upper right, now missing.

When we recorded the site we cored one of the posts still set in adobe, of a small circular masonry structure near where the figurines were found, and obtained a tree-ring date of approximately AD 995. The cutting/harvest date may actually be a few years later, because although the log had "beetle gallery," indicating it was within a few rings of the bark, or exterior ring, the exact outside ring could not be determined on this core sample due to weathering-- thus it probably dates to circa AD 995 to 1000. Also found at the site were a small rock art panel and several artifacts. The small interior alcove where the Pilling Figurines were located appears to have collapsed due to natural erosion.

Bud Pilling, son of Clarence Pilling, at the Pilling Site.

The AD 995-1000 date on the Pilling Site place the construction of the structure, and probably the time the figurines were deposited, within the same time period as the majority of sites in Range Creek. Many of the pithouse villages, rock art and storage facilities, and nearly all of the cliff granaries, appear to have been built about 960 to 1000 years ago.

Hansen Collection

We are still cataloging and photographing and conducting conservation on the Hansen Collection, and are preparing an exhibit scheduled to open April 10 at 1 pm in the museum gallery. The opening is free and the public is invited, and we will have a short presentation and refreshments.

Some Artifacts from the Hansen Collection.

by K. Renee Barlow, Curator of Archaeology

The Range Creek Archaeology "Movie"

2009-12-29T12:22:00.000-08:00

THE DIRT THIS WEEK: UVU Archaeology Interns in Range Creek

2009-10-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

This week Utah Valley University archaeology interns worked in Range Creek-- mapping, GPS'ing, FS'ing, backfilling, excavating, screening for artifacts, visiting rock art and granary sites, and helping CEU close down the site for the season. UVU Honors Program Coordinator Allen Hill brought interns Chantel, Cami, Jana, Rebekah, Leslie, Candace, Madison, Daniel, Kali and Camber for three days of work and fun.

We talked about the Fremont culture, and Range Creek Fremont in particular, while we backfilled the Appliqué House structure at the Little Village, site 42Cb2316. With this crew it only took about 2 hours to completely refill the approximately four by five meter excavation area of the southeast 1/3 of the 1000-1200 year old Fremont house that CEU spent several months gridding, excavating, mapping and photographing, then had a look at the "tripod man" rock art site before setting up camp for the evening. The students cooked dinner and made cheesecake and a wonderful fire-- with good company and conversation.

In spite of evening and morning campfires it was COLD. The first night plummeted to 27 degrees with frost and ice-- a very long night.... The next day we moved down the canyon to site 42Em15, the Burnout. This is the largest Fremont village in Range Creek, with approximately 14 pithouses, several stone "towers" and midden deposits, and the ruins of an historic 'still.

The students took turns rotating through the different tasks, and learned to identify and map artifacts and archaeological features using a Topcom total station, use the prism, record artifact and feature locations on a professional grade GPS, assign Field Specimen numbers to artifacts, record the three types of field data for our paper records, and excavate and screen for artifacts. These students are amazing! In addition to recovering lithic and ceramic artifacts, and charcoal and small pieces of debitage from the excavation unit, Leslie found a whole, classic Fremont clay pipe.

On the way back to camp we looked at rock art and a large granary site, and talked more about the Fremont, and possible links to other Native Americans in this region and the Southwest, particularly the Hopi. In the evening there was another wonderful campfire, cheesecake and snickers, and a great discussion of highlights and challenges, poetry and things we were grateful for, and lots of madness and snapping.

That night was much warmer, a toasty 34 degrees! The students were up and breaking camp early and back on site for more mapping, GPS'ing, artifact cataloging, backfilling, and building raised walkways for visitor pathways across the site.

Wow. Thank you UVU honors students! I am very impressed with this program and all the participants, and hope you will come back again next year.

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

New blog from Range Creek: deep cultural deposits

2009-10-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

In the last week we excavated a dark black, cultural stratum in the south portion of one of the pithouses at the Burnout site in Range Creek, and built about 40 feet of walkway so visitors can walk across the site and past the excavation without walking on artifacts or cultural features. Thanks to Sutherlands for donating about $120 worth of lumber cuts to CEU!

Volunteers Kerk and Ron helped out at the site. Kerk found a gorgeous stone bead, and Ron found a nearly complete, beautiful projectile point. (Kerk also made a fantastic dutch oven peach cobbler at camp for dessert and breakfast!) We removed the layer of adobe, charcoal and cultural debris from the collapsed roof, then began excavating the thick, black layer of sandy sediment beneath, with dense artifacts from the house interior. It appears to have burned so hot that there is little solid wood charcoal left from the wooden beams and withes in the roof, just the blackish sediment. We did find a few pieces of charcoal, including one near the bottom of the level, that may yield an informative radiocarbon date.

Artifacts are abundant in this level, especially small pieces of lithic debitage and broken lithic tools from nearly a dozen different toolstone sources. We recovered nearly 500 specimens during two days of excavation, including a nearly whole projectile point and several smaller projectile fragments, a biface, part of a mano/grinding stone, three beads, broken animal bones from deer-size animals and birds, and a handful of ceramics-- including the rim of a Tsegi orangeware bowl imported from the Pueblo/Hitsatsinom culture region in Arizona.

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

Range Creek Again...

2009-09-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

This week the CEU archaeology class took a field trip into Range Creek. We toured the "Applique House" excavation at the small Fremont Village called 42Cb2316, visited several rock art and granary sites lower in the canyon, and then visited the current excavation that we just began at the "Burnout Village," site 42Em15.

The students looked at the excavation and the lithics and ceramic surface artifacts marked for mapping, and learned to identify the remains of classic Fremont pithouses. Dorian identified a lithic artifact near the excavation that had not yet been flagged, and the whole crew looked at two new probable cultural "features," or concentrations of artifacts with dark, ashy deposits that may be associated with a pithouse and/or midden.

The excavation and analyses continue, with more lithics, ceramics and adobe, and what promises to be a very interesting, dark cultural level beneath the probable adobe roof-fall level. Looks like we will have an intact floor for next week's excavators to uncover.

Next week.... flintknapping to learn prehistoric tool production techniques.

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

CEU Archaeology Lab

2009-09-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

We have four new archaeology students working in the lab at CEU cleaning artifacts and learning the basics of lithic analyses. Sarah, Darius, Mariel and Ron are learning to process the lithic, ceramic and ground stone artifacts recovered from Range Creek this summer, and will also work with the faunal remains and plant macrofossils later in the semester. This week they are identifying different types of lithic material found in Range Creek, (such as obsidian vs. chalcedony, chert or quartzite), stage of reduction (percussion flakes with cortex vs. small biface reduction and sharpening flakes made with antler tools), and tool types, such as bifaces, projectile points, scrapers or utilized flakes. The data these students collect from the artifacts will help us identify the different activities that were going on in the pithouse during two different Fremont occupations 1000 and 1200 years ago, and also help us track a possible shift in exchange networks or land use during this time.

Back in Range Creek

Note David Cassidy, CVAS volunteer, with new friend Lucky.

Later in the week we began mapping, setting up an excavation grid, and excavating at the Burnout Village in Range Creek. The Burnout Village is the largest Fremont site in Range Creek, with at least fourteen Fremont pithouses, the remains of at least two stone masonry Fremont "towers," and the foundation of an historic distillery. CVAS volunteer David Cassidy and CEU archaeology student Ron LaBorde helped with mapping, shoveling, trowel work and screening for artifacts. We are putting test units in several pithouses, and have already found a layer with adobe chunks in the first, indicating a thick roof fall level, possibly capping a well-preserved floor. Artifacts found so far include lithic debitage, ceramic sherds and lots of adobe--several chunks still have impression of fingerprints in them from the people who built this habitation about one thousand to eight hundred years ago.

The weather fluctuated between hot and sunny and 90-plus degrees during the middle of the day, and cool and rainy afternoons with nights in the 40s. We left as the rain started again, and the big storm covered the canyon, but will return this weekend to continue excavating. Stay tuned for more exciting discoveries.....

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

The Dirt ....... August 2009 Edition with Lucky, the blind, 3-legged bighorn sheep

2009-08-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

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

The Dirt on Archaeology: California Crew!

2009-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

This week Elizabeth Seymour and Robert Nash, graduate students at the University of California, Davis, and Christine Zuhlsdorf, graduate student at UCLA, surveyed and sampled sites in Range Creek. The hiking was straight up, usually hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, and always on rough terrain and through heavy brush.

The weather was mostly hot and beautiful with bright blue skies, and we heard the howling of the coyotes near camp in the early morning. We reported a fire to dispatch on our first day, after Christine spotted the black smoke billowing on the horizon in the distance.

Robert found a new granary with several maize cobs and large timbers, and we cored a half dozen timbers in the granary on the ledge of the flute site. Elizabeth drilled the best cores-- two complete samples with good outsides (for cutting/death dates) through the center (for birth dates) of the trees. We also found another artifact on the same ledge as the flute site-- a carved wooden handle with hafting element that fits with the wooden shovel we discovered last November!

We were going to complete excavation of the 1200 year-old Fremont floor on Sunday, but were rained out when a big storm rolled in. So, after giving a jump to a family with a Cadillac SUV that wouldn't start, we headed up to the pass in the rain before the road was too wet to travel.

renee

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

The Dirt on Archaeology: Gar Fish and the Lost Fremont Sites

2009-07-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

We returned to excavate a thin layer of cultural sediments above the lower, 1200 year old floor on two grid units. The crew consisted of CVAS member Marvin Evans and CEU students Jake Anderson and Sarah Botkin. We only recovered a single lithic artifact from the floor, but Jake and Sarah found it while being filmed, and we took quite a few samples from the floor for pollen, phytolith, and macrofossil analyses for microscopic evidence of the foods they were storing and eating at the site. I am hoping for maize pollen!

We had lots of visitors on site. Rick Shaw from the Sun Advocate, Josie Luke from EmeryTelcom TV, and Janna Monson from KUSA and KASL radio stations examined the excavation at "Applique House" and toured some of the other sites in Range Creek. It was a wonderful excursion until the museum suburban broke down! Luckily, we got a tow back up the canyon, courtesy of Josie Luke and her beautiful new SUV. We also had a great visit from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, led by Bill Bates, the Region Manager in Price, and Mark Connolly, the main security officer in Range Creek.

We also recorded several Fremont sites near Nine Mile Canyon-- including a amall pithouse village with pottery and ground stone, and a large site with maize, three granaries and three rock art panels-- and looked at several additional sites that we will be recording during the next month. Thank you Marvin Evans and Tom and Jeannie McCourt!

Tom McCourt made the most exciting discovery of the week... fossilized scales from a prehistoric gar fish! These fish were predators adapted to shallow, still, murky water. They can be up to 3 meters long, weigh hundreds of pounds, and have been around for about 60-100 million years. Wow!!

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

THE DIRT ON WEEK FOUR

2009-07-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

The final week went by like a blur. We really missed Joe and Ingrid, but Kim and Casey were awesome crew members!

We surveyed and recorded the very cool "Lizgrid" Metate Site on the ledge of a side canyon, did lots of mapping, and the entire crew worked incredibly hard to carefully take grid units in the south portion of the structure down to floor level, and defined a second occupation with artifacts that include polished turquoise, a carved bone awl, a ceramic pendant fragment, pottery sherds, a small piece of yellow ochre, and lithic debitage. We also had a very pleasant evening at the Tavaputs Ranch, with dinner, showers and a refreshing cool mountain retreat hosted by Butch and Jeannie Jensen. (The "better-than-sex" cake was delicious, and that's all we'll say about that!) The complete mano, bowl portion, trough metate fragments and several projectile points also appear to be associated with the later occupation, circa AD 1000. Our lowest floor is approximately 1200 years old with several hearths, burned bone, several large unburned deer bone fragments, a charred maize kernel, and numerous sherds near the hearths, a possible central posthole or large burned timber fragment, a stone ball, mano and metate fragments, a rounded subfloor pit with the rim and neck of an applique jar, a stone pendant, a large grayware jar fragment, and dozens of tiny microliths (very small stone debitage from pressure flaking- sharpening or finishing tool edges with an antler tip) in a small area of the floor near the posthole and stone ball.

This week Mel found lithics, ceramics and TURQUOISE ...

Celia found a ceramic pendant fragment, yellow ochre and ceramics....

Kim found floor contact applique and grayware ceramics...

Casey found many ceramics, lithics and faunal remains in several cultural levels ....

and Lisa found a complete bone awl sitting at the contact level of the upper, dark black cultural level with an orange, compact stratum interpreted as a second floor.

Lisa provides a thoughtful, intriguing interpretation of the site in her summary: "...Feature 8 is a large pithouse, possible pithouse, or tower that sits on a fairly steep slope about 100 feet above the flat alluvial floodplain of Range Creek. So far in our excavation of F8 we have found two possible habitation (sic) layers. Uinta grayware, a couple of Uinta points, lots of chalcedony lithic flakes probably originating from the San Rafael Swell, lots of Emery grayware, a bone awl, turquoise, applique pottery, a mano and metate, and a stone slab hearth. Most prehistoric sites if well-constructed have a second habitation. Its common. When I found the whitewash (slipped) ceramic bowl, I wondered if a second use was possible. I still think it is, especially because we can definitely see a orangey floor layer (above) the F11 floor. We also found two intact Uinta side-notched projectile points in higher levels than the F11 floor. These are not all too common within the Fremont culture of this area. Most resources come from the San Rafael Swell. I also think this site is not a permanent site. I don't think the amount of corn produced in these floodplains could support that many people. The game in this canyon would add substance but I still don't think it would provide enough sustenance for a small tribe or even a band. With Range Creek flooding (sic) in the early spring each year the houses would be left above the water. Also, with the amount of granaries above the flooding level of creeks and the extreme places most of the granaries are placed, from 60 to (hundreds of) feet above the canyon floor, may suggest securing food for return at a later date and to keep others and curious animals out of their food supply. The unusual placement of these granaries may also suggest a fear of neighbors competition among other cultures outside Range Creek or hostile bands within Range Creek, perhaps a shortage of food made people hide their food in obscure heights. The shortage of food could also explain the eventual abandonment of the canyon...."

Awl in awl, it was a pretty great week! We saw lots of birds and butterflies, heard coyotes in the morning, and had a Mr. Squirrel (aka Mr. Chipmunk) visit one day. We also had a very nice visit from Tom Curwen of the LA Times and several members of the Marriot Library sound team.

renee

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

The Dirt on Archaeology in Range Creek June 22-28, 2009

2009-06-29T10:23:00.001-07:00

This week we uncovered a beautiful paved hearth with ash originating on the first, bright-orange floor, with oxidized and charred areas along the edges, and found a whole, perfect two-hand mano just above the floor (hopefully this will match up with the trough metate found last week). We also uncovered part of the rim and shoulder of a large decorated grayware applique jar in a small subfloor pit not far from the hearth and mano, in addition to a complete Bear River side-notch projectile point, charred animal bone, ceramics and lithic debitage in the levels above the floor. The crew has been taking sediments for analyses from all levels, and we have found lots of charcoal for radiocarbon dates. Artifacts sitting on the floor are remarkably sparse, but do include the large jar fragment found near the hearth by the SciGirls last week and dozens of tiny micro-debitage flakes in one corner of floor-- It looks like we may have a layer of roof fall along with rocks from the back wall of the structure overlying the floor and associated occupation level in the central portion of the structure.

Melissa- "This week I have really enjoyed! I feel like I've learnt alot- more than I have in the past 2 weeks. I also feel I have more confidence with the excavating techniques, identifying artifacts and especially with the total (station). I've also enjoyed working in two other grids with a different person- gaining experience in using hand-tools, learning about stratigraphy and all the recording procedures that are involved. Its definitely been a hot week (very different from the first two) but its been extremely productive. My highlight would have to be finding the mano- the most complete and larges artifact so far found! So far its still difficult to tell if the Fremont inhabited the site for a long period. I do think the site is a house of habitation, backed up by the hearth, the food grinding materials and the ceramics."

Lisa- "This week brought us gorgeous weather. It wasn't until Thursday that we got rain, and then it didn't stop until Friday morning, just in time for breakfast. Monday through Thursday we worked at the site. Mel found an intact mano!! (edit) Celia and Kim found some charred bone. Friday we (edit) surveyed. We leave this week once again with sunshine. Joe and Ingrid: unfortunately nothing else was found in the other half of F18. Sad day."

Celia- "Wow although we didn't find any really cool artifacts in our grid, I have to say this week has been a rather enjoyable one. I think mostly because of the warmer weather, it brought out a kinder attitude from everyone. Oh and the stream... so much more enjoyable, when one is not freezing (edit)! We finally got around to mapping F8, which actually wasn't so bad. The total station can be fun. I had originally started my grid unit w/ Mel for the first two weeks, but changed over w/ Kim for this week. :) Both girls have been great to work w/. Heard some stories about bears around the canyon, which was truly nerve-wracking. Missed some people back in town fierce this week. Got a terrific tan :) But now I'm ready to have a long shower, sleep in a warm DRY bed and visit people I haven't seen in weeks!"

Kim- "This was my first week of the Range Creek field school. I came in two weeks later than the other students that have been here all month. I spent four days of the week helping to get one of the grids in the site down to floor. Through the week there were several fairly large finds. A mano was uncovered and some pottery that was situated in a wall. There was one feature that was in the floor that was mostly charcoal that still needs to be excavated further to learn more. On the last day we (edit) surveyed (a) new site, and (discovered) more above and below (edit). The weather was nice mostly all week, except Thursday it rained. But apparently that was less than the other weeks so I was grateful for that."

Casey did not write a weekly summary this week, but says about the survey: "We found many concentrations of lithics including a projectile point (which Casey found) that showed a probable Fremont occupation of the area. Additionally, we found a tree that had been cut down in historic time. We finished the day having GPS'ed the site (Casey also did the GPS'ing) and logging what we found."

We excavated and mapped during the week, and then on Friday conducted a survey and found three new sites-- mainly lithic scatters, perhaps indicating hunting camps and/or butchering stations 1000 years ago. The crew did a systematic sweep of the site flagging debitage concentrations and tools, learned to record on an IMACS survey form, and gps'ed the site using a Trimble.

renee

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

Range Creek Week 2: The SciGirls Episode

2009-06-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

This week a PBS film crew from Twin Cities visited the field school in Range Creek, filming a new series called "SciGirls." It focuses on jr. high age girls in science, and the archaeology episode filmed with us will be the fourth or fifth in the series that will air beginning next January. The SciGirls chosen for this episode are Gates and Jazzy. Gates and Jazzy, their Moms Kristen and Carol, a little brother, and the Twin Cities Public TV film crew were with us Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then spent the morning on Saturday wrapping up the episode filming in the museum. In Range Creek we worked with them recording rock art, excavating a Fremont site and rappelling into a granary, and had lots of fun. The film crew provided s'mores, guitar music by the SciGirls and great company and conversation around the campfire.

The girls worked on their own hypotheses about life in Range Creek 1000 years ago. Very impressive! Gates has promised to come volunteer at the museum and help label and process artifacts-- we look forward to working with her and hope she will be a future CEU student and archaeology intern at the museum. Jazzy said she has decided to change her career plans, and will be a professional archaeologist!

The SciGirls Crew included producer Angela Ewald, associate producer Marissa Blahnick, director of photography Mike Phillips, audio recordist/mixer Brian Pederson, professional climber Greg Child and production assistant Bart. SciGirls Website Link: http://www.scigirls.org

The students spent Monday excavating, and Tuesday FS'ing artifacts, cleaning the site and flagging artifacts on the site in the morning, and visiting and recording rock art in the afternoon. Wednesday morning we excavated for about an hour and a half before the SciGirls joined us on site. The field school students gave the film crew a tour of the site and mentored Jazzy and Gates at the excavation, helping them trowel through a grid unit that had been taken down to the lower cultural level, screen for artifacts, take pollen and bulk samples, and map artifacts with the total station and prism.

The girls were fantastic, and found the largest pottery sherds recovered so far from the site! We were rained out around 2:30 pm with a major downpour, and went back to camp where we FS'ed and washed artifacts with the film crew. Thursday we visited a granary site with the SciGirls, and the students surveyed a side canyon of Range Creek before another big thunderstorm rolled in. They found a new site with a large trough metate and a possible pithouse that we will record using IMACS this week! By Friday, the crew had sunshine and hot temperatures and spent the entire day excavating and taking notes, and at the end of the day learned to profile. It was a crazy, terrific week....

We also were joined by two volunteers this week: Liz from Arizona State University, and retired General Greg from Rochester, New York. Liz helped excavate and take notes, and Greg did a great job screening for artifacts. They were a wonderful addition to the crew! (Greg also brought cold sodas and watermelons for the crew). Other visitors included Jeannie Jensen, Mark Connolly, the Greens and the Kirbys.

In the words of the students:

Ingrid- "Summary: My last day in Range Creek. I sure learned a lot. But I feel that I need to go back home to see my little family. I'm certainly going to come back here because I find the unanswered questions really interesting. This week was so crazy! We had a lot of fun around the fire with the film crew and I was really excited to see the two teens live their dream. The survey was one of my favorite moments of the week, and to find a metate was really exciting. It was also fun to have Liz and the general around! Liz and I opened a new grid and even if we didn't really get to do some trowel work it was exciting to dig something new. It was less rainy this week and we got the chance to have some toilets. It was so funny to wee everybody's faces when they arrived! We also saw more paintings and each time I find it special. To see a form of art and communication from the past painted on a wall is just amazing. We also got stuck with the pick-up and that was really a crazy adventure! In conclusion, I had so much fun during this field school and I can't wait to excavate again! Thanks to all the crew and thank you Renee for teaching me so much. :) " (Thank you Ingrid- you are amazing and I hope you will come back and work with us again!)

Lisa- "This week gave us sun, sun, rain, rain, sun, rain, rain, hail, rain, sun, rain, thunder, lightening, rain and finally sun. Monday we planned and made the site ready for the PS television crw visiting us for a few days. Tuesday the film crew came and the team gave a tour of the site. After the tour of the site we all went on a small tour of the canyon to visit three rock art murals. Wednesday the SciGirls found a large piece of the grayware ceramic while excavating 503 N 104 E. After excavating we cleaned artifacts in the rain and hail. Thursday brought a sunny morning, but rather wet day while exploring granaries and surveying the canyon. Friday we spent the first all-sunny day at the site! Finally."

Joe- "June 15th-19th: This week has been an interesting one. There was a film crew up at the site making a tv show for PBS. Most of the week was spent giving tours and monitoring the girls excavations. It was a little more relaxing but we didn't get as much work done. This field school has been great. The site has a lot of interesting artifacts and could turn out to be an important site. It seems that there were two separate occupations at this site or there was a roof collapse with the amount of large stones we have found, the site could be a tower similar to others found in the canyon. It will be interesting to see what comes of the site during future excavations."

Celia Jean- "Mother is bi-polar. So we've had a mixture of superb weather w/ massive cloud coverage and rainstorms. For the most part it was nice enough to get a tan though. We unearthed the rest of our metate which was (g)narly and have found over a dozen more lithics. Pottery in our grid unit hasn't really been a big find of ours. The SciGirls were here filming all week. I love the idea of teaching young girls that science can be cool for everyone, especially archaeology. Stay away from those hidden temples though girls... that's my find :) I've celebrated my birthday out here which was a kick a**. I wanted a great outdoor experience (alcohol-free) on my birthday and that is what I got- hooray for that :) The hike was intense but rewarding, we did find one metate and possibly one more feature "pithouse." Overall though the week was great. I'm hoping our site turns out to be some sort of communal hot spot big (....) the weird rock formation that appears to be w/in. We'll see though!

Mel- " This week has actually been really good with the film crew coming. We got to experience what a filming production is like. It was also a really good mix of excavation work and rock art with also some analysis and artifact cleaning. It's exciting that Celia and I are getting closer to the floor and we're taking more care. We have excavated F9/F16 and in parts have hit F17- very exciting! In addition, I found 5 lithic debitage today. First day I've found any- and found five- awesome. I really enjoyed the rock art too- analyzing the symbols- this probably is the best!"

--Well, that wraps up our week. On site the students uncovered a trough metate fragment, a mano fragment, a paved floor feature with ash (possible second hearth), ceramics that included applique, a lithic tool, debitage and animal bone, and lots of charcoal, ash and rocks.

renee

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

The Dirt on Archaeology: Field School Week One in Range Creek

2009-06-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Our first week excavating "Little Village" in Range Creek was extremely productive, in spite of unpredictable weather and adjustments to field conditions। We flagged artifacts and mapped with a gps and a total station, set grid stakes, took notes, assessed sediments, excavated, screened, bagged and FS'd many artifacts, and toured rock art and granaries. Celia Jean found a complete, beautiful side-notched point, and the 2-meter crew found a partial bowl associated with a possible second occupation about a meter and a half into the structure.

In the words of the crew

Ingrid- "Resume of the Week: This week passed so quickly! I had some ups and downs, but I've learned a lot for sure. I've excavated, described, screened, straightened walls, laughed, cried, learned, made some mistakes. I've learned to use the total station, it was scary and stressful at first, but after a few shots it's easy. I also learned how to use a GPS and I have to say that technology really helps in archaeology! I don't feel extenuated at all and I'm really excited to come back on Monday. I'm still asking some vocabulary questions (Ingrid's native language is French). I think that the discovery of the bowl was the moment of the week! And also the small projectile point. After this week, I really understand why it's important to keep a clean surface and straight walls. These are our guides, not only for the digging but also for the associations! This week was also the "rain week," maybe it's slowed us a bit, but with this beautiful sunny Friday I'll like to think that next week will be "sunny week." I want some Utah sun before returning to Montreal!"

Lisa- "Week 1 Summary: This week met us with rain cloud after rain cloud. The drive into the canyon was gorgeous but it soon turned sour. By Wednesday everyone was soggy. However, the weather did not deter us from our primary goal: the Range Creek Arch Project. Monday we located artifacts below two known features and another possible feature. Tuesday the team recovered the floor that last year’s team had already excavated. Waiting for us there was a metate! Wednesday we mapped the artifacts below the features and lived through some pretty miserable weather. After lunch it finally reached 50 degrees and we made it to the site. Each grid completed about 20 cm of excavation before the day was through. Thursday was an exciting day. The first grid found an intact lithic biface, probably used as an arrow point. And the second grid found two sherds to a bowl and saw two others waiting to be excavated. Friday we mapped the site (Feature 8), mapping each open grid unit and the known, in situ artifacts, metate and bowl. After mapping we completed two bulk samples to be tested for (macrofossils) and small animal bones and two pollen samples to test for (maize pollen) and other plants the inhabitants may have used. We left the site Friday with lots of questions. What is this new F16 feature, were there other inhabitants, did a roof cave in?"

Joe- "June 8th - 12th Summary: This week has been pretty fun. This is my first dig and it has been a great experience. The weather has been awful. It was cold and rainy until Friday when it finally cleared up. While excavating we all found a lot of artifacts from tiny pieces of ceramic and lithic debitage to an arrowhead and a partial bowl. We also found part of an animal bone. I have learned a lot doing this field school, much more than can be learned in a classroom. The experience of working out at a site and camping in the freezing cold and the rain hasn't yet put me off from being an archaeologist. Hopefully next week brings as much knowledge and discovery as this week has."

Celia Jean- "Wow the week went fast. I think partially 'cause the dreary blur of the rainy weather. So yeah working with dirt is making me think. Water...Sand...Dirt. I definitely would love to give (underwater) excavating a try. I think it also matters on the crew. This group seems pretty cool so far. Everyone is so diligent and making sure things are done and each other is treated nicely/ helped when needed. the dig so far is kinda cool. Minus the weather mood swings and add some fitness to myself! Every trek up is a li'l harder for some reason. I think a weekend of no uphill hiking should do me good, oh yeah and rest on a bed! The tools we're using. I never really expected to have high tech. equipment out here, so it's really cool. That way I really am learning how to work a site, for future ref. What else can I say? The mountains are beautiful. The creek is sweet :) . The food is nice. My peers are from all over, but we are all so similar. Let's get this next week going!!

Mel did not write a summary this week, but says: "... the weather is finally looking good! Nice and sunny, although I am glad it's the weekend because I think my body needs a rest and it'll be awesome to have a hot shower and not be cold at night."

Stay tuned for next week, when we are visited by the SciGirls from Twin Cities PBS.

K. Renee Barlow, Ph.D.

Curator of Archaeology

College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum

2009-06-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

May Saturday on the Swell

We celebrated Prehistory Week in May with a rock-art-bonanza Saturday on the Swell that was well-attended and lots of fun! We visited spectacular Barrier Canyon pictograph murals at Buckhorn Wash, Head of Sinbad, and Black Dragon Wash, dinosaur tracks, and carved snakes and a lizard and Kokopelli at Dry Canyon, and the enigmatic petroglyphs at the Rochester Panel. We talked about the differences between Barrier Canyon and Fremont styles, and identified some of each at most of the sites. Dale Harber, Chris Mungall, Brent and Kamille Burrows, Linda and Tim Patterson, Jim and Colleen Huffaker, Kerk, Alan and Joan Phillips, and an unexpected visitor from Seattle, Kevin Lashinsky, braved the crisp spring sunshine and perfect weather to explore these beautiful sites.

Kerk Phillips at Dry Canyon

Pictos at Black Dragon Wash

Ute Tipi

During prehistory week I also recorded a Ute tipi and campsite with Randy Jones from the local CVAS chapter. We identified and documented several lithic scatters and a windbreak feature with a hearth, and several possible areas with corrals or game drives. One of the most exciting aspects of this site is its lack of historic garbage-- no food tins, ceramics, glass or metal wires-- suggesting it is quite early and possible pre-Anglo in age, maybe dating to the late 1700s or early 1800s. BLM archaeologist Byron Loosle will be investigating how this site ties into his research on the Ashley National Forest and a wickiup site recorded by Steve Simms, and has already contacted the Ute tribe to identify elders who may have a memory or oral history of living or camping in this part of the Tavaputs.

Randy Jones Lost Tip Site

CEU Archaeological Field School

Range Creek canyon is green and lush with dozens of wildflowers in bloom. I am setting up the field camp this week, and eight to ten students and volunteers coming to excavate during the month of June. Students from as far away as Adelaide, Australia, and as close as Salt Lake City will learn the basics of archaeological field work and help discover what life was like 1000 years ago in a high elevation Fremont farming community in eastern Utah. The site is located on the first rise overlooking the creek and alluvial floodplain, where ancient farmers and foragers probably cultivated maize, squash and beans, hunted deer, elk, bighorn sheep and rabbits, and collected wild seeds, roots and berries. They may have fished for native trout in the creek. The artifacts, ecofacts and cultural features that we document will help us reconstruct prehistoric diet and overall modes of subsistence and storage, as well as the possible function of different areas of the site. We are hoping to determine how this site fits in the larger pattern of settlement and subsistence throughout the canyon and the greater Fremont region, and how lifeways in Range Creek compared to prehistoric communities in Nine Mile Canyon, the San Rafael Swell, Vernal, and throughout the Fremont culture region.

Range Creek Globemallow

We are excited to be hosting Twin Cities Public Television i, who will be filming an episode of "SciGirls," a new PBS program that highlights the role of girls in science. The Range Creek episode will focus on ..... archaeology.

Desert Lupine on the Burnout Village

Stay tuned for weekly updates during the field school. I will be posting the best student summaries of our weekly discoveries and adventures, along with pictures of the crew.

Renee Barlow, PhD

Back on the Swell

2009-04-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Archaeology is back in swing at the CEU Prehistoric Museum, with lots of trips to discover and record sites.

Tuesday we recorded a lithic scatter found by volunteer Craig Royce, and several Archaic projectile points on the San Rafael Swell. Mr. Royce is an expert in geology, regularly volunteers at the Paleo Lab with John Bird, and teaches literature at the Pinnacle Academy. He brought two of his best students, Victoria "Tori" Brandt and Trevor Burge, to help out at the site.

The day was hot, with temperatures exceeding 80 degrees, and it was a beautiful day on the Swell. Tori turned out to be an excellent artist, creating a very good sketch of a Humboldt concave-base projectile, and Trevor was a natural with the Trimble GPS, recording most of the artifacts on the site.

We have a beautiful Shoshoni eagle feather headdress that will be donated back to the Shoshoni Tribe. The headdress was presented by the tribe to KSL weatherman Bob Welty back in the 1980s at the Festival of the American West. It was brought to the museum by Chris Montague, the Director of Conservation Programs at the Nature Conservancy in Salt Lake. It is made of the primary flight feathers and plume feathers of a bald eagle, with ermines and rabbit fur and very nice beadwork. It is authentic, and quite striking. We are very pleased to be returning this beautiful artifact to Bruce Parry, Executive Director of the Shoshoni Tribe in Brigham City, so the tribe can display it in the new tribal museum at the American West Heritage Center.

Our latest Saturday on the Swell started balmy and ended stormy, with rain, snow, hail and hurricane force winds. Fifteen intrepid explorers/volunteers came on the expedition, including: CEU archaeology intern Jen Zivkovich, CVAS member Jim Huffaker, Weber State University Students Maren Svare, Stephanie Karren, Chance Cummings, Selest Sanchez and Debra Lynne, and volunteers Camille and Michael Davidson, Breanne Loosle, Linda and Tim Patterson, and professional archaeologists Alison Leick and Byron Loosle (Dr. Loosle is also the BLM state archaeologist). We left the museum in sunshine, but by the time we reached the site there was a strong wind and foreboding clouds. The volunteers flagged and recorded pottery sherds, lithic debitage and tools, and even a mano. The site is a Fremont village, and was so large that we had to concentrate on one activity area. We will be documenting, mapping, and eventually conducting excavations at this important site. After lunch, the temperature quickly dropped about 15 degrees and the rain/hail started, so we moved up to the Rochester site where we had calm weather for about 40 minutes. The rock art was spectacular, and the hike was very nice, and then we headed into town for a quick stop for hot chocolate and restrooms.

Please join us for our next Saturday on the Swell during Utah Prehistory Week on Saturday, May 9. We will be discussing the Barrier Canyon Archaic and the San Rafael Fremont, and touring several famous rock art sites, including Buckhorn Wash, Head of Sinbad, Black Dragon, Dry Wash and Rochester. RSVP to Dr. Renee Barlow at 435-613-5290 or renee.barlow@ceu.edu by Thursday, May 7, and make sure to bring your lunch, snacks, plenty of water, a hat with a brim, sunscreen and hiking shoes. And rain gear-- just in case.

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

The Dirt on Archaeology

2009-03-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Spring is here and we are starting fieldwork again on the San Rafael Swell. We have already been out recording sites, including rock art and several lithic scatters. Our next Saturday on the Swell is scheduled for April 25. We will be recording and mapping a Fremont Village that we will be excavating over the next few years; starting the very important task of documentation. We will have lunch at the site—there is no shade so please bring a hat with a brim and plenty of sunscreen, and warm clothes in case it is windy. In the afternoon we will visit the famous Rochester site. A narrow, rocky hiking trail is involved, but well worth it for the spectacular Barrier Canyon and Fremont style petroglyphs.

Jen Zivkovich recording an archaeological site on the San Rafael Swell

Members, museum patrons, students, CVAS members and anyone interested is invited to come along. We meet at the museum at 8:30 am, and plan to return around 5 pm, so bring plenty of lunch, snacks, water, hiking shoes, a warm coat, hat and sunscreen. For more information, or to reserve a spot in the museum vehicle, contact Dr. Renee Barlow at renee.barlow@ceu .edu, PR Director Christine Trease @ christine.trease@ceu.edu, or Education Director Lloyd Logan at lloyd.logan@ceu.edu.

Oregon Public Broadcasting has finished up the pilot for the “Time Team USA” archaeology series. It will probably air on KUED in June. It features the U of U’s new excavations in Range Creek, and also the Pilling Figurines, with scenes shot right here in the museum. Stay tuned for more about the program…

Rochester Site

This summer we are working on archaeological sites in Range Creek (including excavation, survey, and further documentation of granaries and the flute site), Nine Mile Canyon, the Price River Canyon, and the San Rafael Swell. We will also be trying to identify the location of several sites in the area of Robbers Roost. There will be lots of hiking and hot, thirsty days, but is a great way to spend time out in the field. If you are interested in volunteering, if you know sites that need to be recorded, or if you just want to hang out with archaeologists for a few days, contact us at the museum.

Spiral Horned Snake Pegtroglyph

The College of Eastern Utah Archaeology Field School

The CEU/Prehistoric Museum Field School will run four weeks this year, from June 8 through July 3, in Range Creek. We will continue excavations at one of the sites we started last year: a small Fremont farming village with several pithouses and a stone masonry structure. We may also investigate a second group of three structures that we found above the excavation area last year, and begin mapping and excavations at the Burnout Village—the largest village in Range Creek.

photo of Casey Dooms

Time: June 8 to July 3
Where: Range Creek, Utah
What: Students will camp in the canyon Monday through Friday and gain experience excavating a Fremont Village with pithouses, hearths, ceramics, lithics and ground stone artifacts. Students will also participate in surveying and mapping archaeological sites for several days, and learn to process and analyze artifacts in a field laboratory.

The College of Eastern Utah has open enrollment, and accepts applications on a first-come, first-serve basis. The cost is $175 for three credit hours, in addition to a special fee. For more information contact Renee Barlow at 435-613-5290 or renee.barlow@ceu.edu.

Renee Barlow, Curator of Archaeology

Dating the Range Creek Flute

2008-12-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

Dr. Rittenour Examines the Flute at the CEU Prehistoric Museum

The Range Creek flute was found by Alan Green in 2006. This amazing artifact is a wooden four-hole instrument with a carved mouthpiece. It was found wedged in a crevice on a ledge above a cliff in a small, shallow, northeast-facing alcove. The site includes several associated rock art panels. The closest, small pictograph may be Archaic, though the panel is heavily weathered and lacks clearly diagnostic elements. Further along the ledge to the south, a larger panel with remarkable preservation includes multiple figures, and may be Fremont. Nearby, around the corner on a very narrow portion of the ledge above a 50-ft high cliff, we found the remains of a granary with wood timbers, fingerprints in adobe, and additional artifacts that include maize, a wooden shovel, and a possible wooden handle.

Ute Elder Clifford Duncan Performs a Blessing at the Range Creek Site (photo by Alan Green)

When the flute was recovered, Clifford Duncan, a Ute elder, performed a ceremonial blessing. Although the flute does not appear to be Ute, we do not know its cultural affiliation. The flute is 80 cm, or nearly three-feet long, narrow, and appears to be an end-blown flute. It is likely associated with the main Fremont occupation of Range Creek circa AD 1000, but it may be associated with a late Prehistoric Numic occupation. There is also a small chance that the flute may be Archaic, possibly associated with a handful of Barrier-Canyon style pictographs found throughout Range Creek.

Rock Art Panels Found Near the Location of the Flute

Elders of the Hopi tribe and Leigh Kuwanwisiwma from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office examined the flute, and felt that although it is not similar to flutes used in their ceremonies today, it could be associated with ancestral clans from the north who may have been associated with the Fremont. They consulted at some length, and decided that dating the flute would be important in determining cultural affiliation, and that the preferred method would be the relatively non-destructive OSL technique through the Utah State University lab.

Dr. Rittenour Examines the Flute Site with Alan Green

Dr. Tammy Rittenour is confident the Optically Stimulated Luminescence technique will allow her to determine if the flute is 500, 1000 or 3000 years old. She will set up a dark room at the museum where she will be able to work without “dosing” the dirt inside the flute, or exposing it to light. All she needs are a few grains of sand. She examined the flute and identified an area with packed sediment in the end of the flute where she will extract several sand grains for dating, then visited the Range Creek site where the flute was found and recovered sediment samples for comparative analyses. Although fragile and possibly 1,000 years old, Dr. Rittenour was surprised at the preservation of the flute. She appeared to be even more surprised after she reached the site (a 200 ft hike up steep talus and then across a narrow ridge) and examined the location where the flute was hidden, maybe for 1000 years. She is excited to work with the flute, and perhaps to conduct additional research in Range Creek.

Renee Barlow, Curator of Archaeology

All About Jen

2008-11-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Jen Zivkovic was born and raised in Layton, Utah where she worked as a habilitative trainer at a home for women with mental disabilities. She moved to Price about a year ago with her husband Jeff (aka “Mr. Z”). Jeff teaches Math and English at Helper Jr. High. They love this area and have decided to settle down here. Jen is a member of USAS and enjoys volunteering with the Paleo guys when she can. Anthropology has always been one of Jen’s favorite studies and she has found an excellent mentor in Dr. Pam Miller. Jen is now having a great time interning under Dr. Renee Barlow and is learning about site records, artifact analysis, drawing artifacts, profiles and site sketches, doing macrofossil flotation in the lab, and writing a site report. Jen loves the Prehistoric Museum and everyone who works there, and she is very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it.

Jen enjoys scrambling over cliffs and steep slopes looking for and recording archaeological sites. She has worked on several sites in Range Creek, Utah, including a Fremont habitation site with the remains of a pithouse, circular surface structure, and artifacts that include ceramics (Jen reconstructed part of a vessel in the field from some of the sherds we found on site), lithic debitage and tools, and ground stone. She has also completed typing the site notes and inking the sketches for the Appliqué House site report, the small Fremont Village at the north end of Range Creek, and she completed the analyses of most of the ceramic artifacts recovered during the 2008 excavation. She is bright and a fast learner, and is an incredible asset in the field and lab.

Last week Jen assisted in recording a new discovery in Range Creek- the remains of a granary with maize and a carved wooden shovel. The crew included DWR officers Alan Green (who found the Range Creek Flute), Mark Connolly (who found the granary), Utah State University OSL lab manager Dr. Tammy Rittenour, Gary and Gavin O’Brien, Prehistoric Museum Director Dr. Reese Barrick, and Curator Dr. Renee Barlow. Dr. Rittenour extracted sediments from the site where the flute was found – more about Dr. Rittenour and the dating of the flute in our next blog…

Jen is fearless. The granary that we recorded is located about 200 feet above the canyon floor, on a narrow ledge above a 50 ft. high cliff. To reach the site requires negotiating a very narrow portion of the ledge in a precarious situation above the cliff where part of the wall juts out around a corner. It took me several minutes to assess this and decide where I would place my hands and feet, and how I would balance myself as I went around the corner, but Jen didn’t even slow down. She went straight across the ledge to the granary and was very excited to explore the site; no fear. We set up some protection above the granary and roped into our harnesses, and she helped with the IMACS form, the feature sketch and the tree-ring sample. She is a natural. We are encouraging her to enroll in a four year archaeology program when she finishes here, and to think about applying to graduate school at USU.

We love having Jen around!

Saturdays on the Swell

Our first Saturday out was “SWELL” with 11 people attending. Jen Zivkovich, of course, along with Education Director Lloyd Logan and his wife Connie Logan, Ariel Hayes, David Cassidy, Karen Brungven, Scott Harding, and CEU Engineer Kyle Larsen and family. We didn’t find the site we wanted to record after four-wheeling in the eastern Swell for about an hour, so we toured rock art sites in Buckhorn Wash and the Moore cutoff road. It was a fun day with sunshine and temps in the 60s.

Our next “Saturday on the Swell” will be December 6. We will meet at the museum at 8 am, drive to the southern part of the San Rafael Swell and record a newly discovered Archaic site, then visit several rock art panels before driving back to the museum. This activity is open to all who would like to attend, students and volunteers are welcome! Bring a lunch, snacks and lots of water, a camera, hiking boots and a warm coat, and plan on being out from 8 am to about 4 pm.

For more information, or to reserve a seat in the museum vehicle, call PR Director Christine Trease at 435-613-5757, Education Director Lloyd Logan at 435-613-5760, or Dr. Renee Barlow at 435-613-5290.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Renee Barlow

Saturdays on the Swell

2008-10-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

We are starting a new archaeology program at the CEU Prehistoric Museum called “Saturdays on the Swell.” We will tour rock art sites and conduct archaeological work on the San Rafael Swell one Saturday a month with volunteers and students. Anyone interested is welcome to contact us for more information. Saturdays on the Swell will kick-off with a day of exploring and recording sites on Saturday, November 8. We will meet at the museum at 9 am and return between 4 and 5 pm. Bring a sack lunch, hiking shoes, a warm coat and plenty of water. To sign up for a ride, or for more information about the program, contact Christine Trease (435) 613-5757 christine.trease@ceu.edu, Lloyd Logan (435) 613-5760 lloyd.logan@ceu.edu or Dr. Renee Barlow at (435) 613-5290 (renee.barlow@ceu.edu).

We have a new archaeology intern at the museum: Jennifer Zivkovich. Jen is an anthropology/archaeology student at CEU, and is currently working on Range Creek artifacts, site records and excavation notes. Stay tuned for next week’s blog: “ALL ABOUT JEN.”

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

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SAN RAFAEL

2008-10-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

K. Renee Barlow, Karen Green and Stephanie Fitzsimons, College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum

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.

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

Another Range Creek Adventure

2008-09-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

This week we spent four days in Range Creek discovering and recording new sites. The fall colors were beautiful, with maple, sumac, aspen and cottonwoods turning florescent orange, red and gold, and purple asters, wild sunflower and rabbitbrush in full bloom.

Our crew of six over the weekend included volunteers Casey Dooms and Randi Jo Martin, and CEU students Jen Zivkovich, Gary Ortega and Gordon Craft. Casey drove all the way from his new digs in Cedar City (bad pun intended) to help out with the project, and he and Randi are both former CEU students from Price. Thank you Casey and Randi!

Fremont mano in Range Creek

We recorded a new Fremont farming village even higher in elevation than "Appliqué House," with another probable masonry structure on the edge of a natural terrace at the top of the site, and a beautiful pithouse with upright slab walls on the next terrace below it. We named it the "Mano Site" since we initially found a perfect two-hand Fremont mano made of purple quartzite imported from the Vernal area. Although it is less than a hundred meters from Appliqué House, which yielded dozens of Fremont appliqué ceramics, there are no appliqué sherds on the mano site. In fact, there are no appliqué ceramics on any site in Range Creek other than Appliqué House.

We first revisited Appliqué House so that the new students could see the site. Jen, Gary and Gordon are hard at work cleaning, labeling and analyzing the Appliqué House ceramics, lithics and groundstone in the lab at CEU, and this helped them put the artifacts into context. The most difficult part of the exercise was learning to recognize artifacts on the ground, but by the second day most were able to identify ceramics and chipped stone lithics, and distinguish these from natural stones and colluvial debris.

Fremont structure at the top of the "Mano Site"

We worked at the Mano Site Saturday and Sunday, where we recorded, photographed and sketched five bifaces, a Cottonwood triangular projectile point, two hammerstones, the perfect mano, three ceramics below the pithouse and second terrace (which Jen refit, forming part of an Emery grayware jar that was polished on the exterior and scraped on the interior), three metate fragments around and below the wall of the possible circular masonry structure, or "Fremont Pueblo" at the top of the site, a handful of other ceramics, and dozens of lithic debitage flakes that included white, gray, red, purple and brown cherts, translucent chalcedony, and gray quartzite.

Fremont pithouse on a natural terrace at the "Mano Site"

We also took a trip down the canyon to visit the rock art and granaries at Nelson Canyon and look at "Burnout Village," where we will begin excavations next spring.

Petroglyphs on monolith south of the confluence with Nelson Canyon

Camping was an adventure on Saturday night, as a thunder/lightning storm moved in and flooded the camp, literally. Jen's tent was blown over in the storm, and Gary ignored the gear list and didn't even bring a tent. He insisted that he had spent many nights camped in colder temperatures and worse conditions when he worked on fire crews, and that he didn't need one. He lit a campfire between storms, and we told stories and roasted Jiffy Pop over the coals. The clouds cleared for a while and we saw Venus and some beautiful stars, and the Milky Way was as bright as I had ever seen it.

We also recorded a new granary 700 feet above Range Creek, in the sandstone ridge high above camp, and began documenting a rockshelter site with charcoal and lithic artifacts 500 feet above camp. This is the best time to visit Range Creek!

Red adobe granary 700 ft above Range Creek

Rockshelter with artifacts and charcoal.

K. Renee Barlow

CEU Excavations at Range Creek & Etc.

2008-09-09T15:26:00.001-07:00

We are continuing investigations at a small 1000 year-old Fremont village in the north end of Range Creek, and working on other archaeological projects in the San Rafael Swell, Nine Mile Canyon and the Price River Canyon. In Range Creek we finished excavating a three by one meter area to the floor of what appears to be a very large circular masonry one-room structure, or "Fremont pueblo" that we nicknamed "Appliqué House." The structure appears to have been approximately eight to twelve meters in diameter. It was occupied around AD 1000, most likely during the hot summer months. Dr. Reese Barrick and Amber Schweiger visited the site and helped screen and find artifacts, and we have recovered grayware ceramics, appliqué ceramics, mano fragments, stone and ceramic pendants, a hammerstone, lithic waste flakes, a projectile point, a biface fragment, charcoal, animal bone and a Fremont stone ball, with some artifacts clustered on the floor near a small ash-filled hearth. We also recovered samples for Carbon-14 dating and sediment analyses. We will continue excavating Appliqué House during the 2009 CEU archaeological field school next summer, and will start excavations at the "Burnout Village," later this month.

Last week we excavated a deep one-by-one meter test pit on the floodplain below "Appliqué House." The goal of these small tests units placed just off-site is to recover sediment that is approximately 1000 years old that may yield evidence of maize farming, and possibly prehistoric irrigation or farming features near Range Creek. We dug through several levels of rocks, silts, sands and charcoal lenses, and collected sediment samples for pollen, phytolith and chemical analyses from approximately 1.5 meters below the current ground surface.

Hopi Visit
We also met with the Director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and four Hopi elders, who were very excited about the Range Creek flute and other artifacts in the museum. They feel that the Fremont of this region may be part of their ancestral clans, and would like to visit Range Creek with us to look at rock art.

The Cliff Green Site
This week we recorded a new Fremont site near one of the Dinosaur Quarries in the San Rafael desert. The site was literally washing away towards a small side drainage, and included multiple sherds from a single, small Emery gray jar that had been dropped or cached at the site, two stone cores, part of a biface and several pieces of chipped stone.

Upcoming Conference Presentations
We will be presenting a paper and a poster at the Great Basin Anthropological Conference in Portland. The paper is "The Fremont Granaries of Range Creek: Defensive Maize Storage on the Colorado Plateau." The poster is called "Archaeology of the San Rafael" and will include information multiple sites we are investigating as part of our newest CEU project: the San Rafael Archaeological Project.

The Archaeology of Range Creek
Located on the northern Colorado Plateau, Range Creek is one of the deep canyons of the Green River drainage. The terrain is rugged and steep, and heavily vegetated. Range Creek Canyon cuts through the Roan Cliffs on the West Tavaputs Plateau, and is a major tributary of the Green River with a confluence just below Desolation Canyon. The perennial creek and springs provide a constant, predictable supply of fresh water, and the Douglas fir forests, pinyon/juniper woodlands, lush riparian thickets and desert saltbush communities of Range Creek hosted a substantial prehistoric population of farmers and foragers.

The archaeological record of Range Creek is unique. After seven seasons of fieldwork approximately 400 archaeological sites have been discovered and documented, including more than 100 sites with rock art, 148 granaries, and dozens of small pithouse villages. The majority of sites are associated with the Fremont culture, and the people who produced them hunted and farmed maize, beans and squash throughout much of Utah and parts of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming from approximately AD 400 to 1350. Archaic peoples who were part of the same culture that painted the beautiful Barrier Canyon pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon and Buckhorn Wash camped in the canyon and probably hunted sheep and deer on the ridges above the floodplain beginning between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago.

The earliest Fremont started farming in the canyon by about AD 400. From this time to about AD 800, these ancient people mostly used the lower canyon for hunting, collecting wild plants, and cultivating small plots of maize and gourds. They probably lived in small, mobile bands like the Paiute hunter-gatherers of southern Utah, planting seeds and crops at a half dozen locations in several different canyons. Later in the year they would return, harvesting their crops and wild plant foods and storing them in small juniper, sandstone slab and adobe-lined bins, or "cists" in the floors of caves and shallow alcoves.

Between AD 930 and AD 1040, the Fremont in Range Creek began faming the middle and upper reaches of the canyon and became a unique, local cultural entity. They inhabited dozens of small pithouse villages on the first rise above the canyon floor, stored their maize in large granaries on the cliffs, and built circular masonry rooms on prominent knolls above farms and villages. They painted shields, spirals, snakes, and figures of people in masks, and constructed a few village sites high on the ridges, 800 to 1700 feet above the canyon floor. They farmed corn, harvested local seeds and hunted bighorn sheep and deer. They mainly used local pottery and raw lithic materials from the area of the San Rafael Swell, Ivie Creek and the Muddy River, but also imported cherts, quartzite, obsidian and pottery from other Fremont regions, including areas near Vernal, Fillmore, and Richfield.

By AD 1160, agriculture in Range Creek was waning. The cliff granaries were abandoned by this time, and only a few, larger villages in the middle and lower portions of the canyon appear to have been occupied. Perhaps they lived year-round in the canyon, and stored their maize in the houses like some Fremont in other regions. In addition to the traditional small Fremont grayware jars, they used large trough-shaped grinding stones, decorated black-on-white bowls, large corrugated cooking jars, and Tsegi orangeware and polychrome pottery. They probably traded for some Kayenta Anasazi wares with Fremont or Anasazi neighbors to the south, along the Green River and Colorado River corridors. The Range Creek Fremont appear to have abandoned the canyon by AD 1200.

ciao-

CEU Excavations at Range Creek

2008-08-05T08:47:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Range Creek! We have found five new sites, and have started gridding and mapping two Fremont habitation sites. We are also visiting rock art sites and granaries in other parts of the canyon, including the "Lost Cow" granary in a small tributary of Range Creek and these beautiful bighorn sheep petroglyphs.

This week we are excavating a small, 1000-year old farming village in the north part of Range Creek at an elevation of nearly 7000 ft above sea level. It has been surprisingly chilly up here, with daytime highs in the 80s and nighttime lows in the 40s, so we have a fire in camp most evenings. So far we have documented the remains of at least three different houses, including two pithouses and the remains of a circular, one room Fremont pueblo. The pueblo is at the top of a very steep hillside-- above the creek, the floodplain and the pithouses on the site. It has a "bird's-eye view" of everything going on in the canyon below. Artifacts include appliqué and grayware pottery, projectile points, lithic waste flakes, a hammerstone, and several fragments of manos and metates.

The floor of the house is compact, bright orange in places, and has a small ash-filled hearth with charred animal bones and charcoal and about a dozen pottery sherds. Given its east-facing aspect and high elevation, we expect that this was a summer home overlooking several pithouses lower on the bench, and maize farms along Range Creek. We have collected samples for 14C dating, pollen and macrofossil analyses, and are still excavating the floor in hope of finding the back wall, a central hearth, and perhaps a few subterranean storage pits.

Students and volunteers participating in the excavation include Ashley Humphries, Weber State University; Bill Heffner, CEU Prehistoric Museum; Casey Dooms, College of Eastern Utah; Caprielle Barlow, Willamette University; and Alex Murillo, Oregon State University.

Last week we had visitors in camp and at the museum documenting Range Creek for a new PBS archaeology special called "Time Team, USA." This series will begin airing in 2009 or 2010 with six episodes patterned after the Great Britain show, and they may start with the Range Creek episode. The "Time Team" visited the CEU Prehistoric Museum to document Fremont figurines on display in the Archaeology Hall, including the Lee Figurine and the world-famous Fremont figurines found by Clarence Pilling.

http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20080326_timeteam.html

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

Range Creek

2008-07-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Check out the Range Creek YouTube video at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evqkZwXS7N4

This year we are excavating two Fremont archaeological sites in Range Creek, in addition to discovering and recording new sites. The first site we will be investigating is a small, high elevation farming village site that my crews recorded near the main road. When we discovered this site we documented the remains of at least three pithouses, prehistoric ceramics, lithic and ground stone artifacts, and a chipped stone hoe probably used for farming. This year we will be investigating one of the cultural feature that appears to be a collapsed, approximately1000 year-old home with artifacts and charcoal eroding out from what may have been a stone masonry and adobe wall. This will be a small and difficult test excavation to determine the extent and nature of cultural deposits and to date the site. The remains are so subtle that the site is very difficult to see, and most people walk by this location without noticing any archaeological remains. Some even complain that we are "hiding" the sites. In addition to excavating the pithouse, we will also be putting in one or two small test units off-site to try to find evidence of maize fields nearby-- by taking samples for microscopic traces of farming activities, such as pollen, phytoliths and starches.

The second site is a large farming village in the middle of the canyon with the remains of at least a dozen structures including many pithouses and several circular stone masonry structures. We will be excavating portions of several of these structures to determine the function of each, to date the site, and to answer research questions about prehistoric diet (e.g., Which crops were farmed? Which wild seeds and berries were collected? Which animals were hunted?), farming and foraging strategies, storage practices within farming villages, exchange/trade networks between different Fremont groups and their Anasazi neighbors to the south, and overall social and political complexity approximately 800-900 years ago in Range Creek, in the AD 1100s. We will also be sampling several test units near this site to identify farming areas and find out about Fremont agricultural practices.

Stay tuned for more...

The Dirt on Archaeology....

2008-06-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

I am very excited to be at the Prehistoric Museum! The archaeology of this region is so interesting-- there are amazing Barrier Canyon and Fremont rock art sites, pithouse villages where people farmed corn from AD 400 to 1300, and many areas where people hunted, collected wild plants and camped for thousands of years. My favorite sites are rock art panels with sheep and spirals and shields. So far this summer we have documented eight previously undiscovered archaeological sites in Range Creek, including a Fremont rock art site with four anthropomorphs (trapezoidal people-like figures, several of which are wearing face paint or masks, and one with a bison-horn headdress), a pithouse, a granary, lithic, ceramic and ground stone artifacts, and a probable archaic campsite.

This summer we are continuing fieldwork at Fremont archaeological sites in Range Creek, and starting new archaeological projects on the San Rafael Swell and Price River. As I finish the mounds and mounds of required paperwork to get these started, we will be also be starting additional projects near many of our dinosaur quarries, and in the next few months I will be looking for volunteers to become involved in excavations and surveys. Volunteers are encouraged to join the Castle Valley Archaeological Society. For more information contact Chanel Atwood at 613-5754.

CEU Archaeological Field School

The CEU archaeological field school will run for three weeks from July 14 through August 2 in Range Creek at two Fremont pithouse villages. The course will include training in excavation, site documentation, artifact identification, identifying stratigraphy and cultural features, mapping, site surveys, IMACS forms, reading topographic maps and using gps units. Students will keep a field journal, and will be graded on participation, the journal, and a written summary of the archaeological sites. Most days will be spent excavating, but there will also be 2-3 days of archaeological survey. Plan to have lots of fun working hard and learning about the archaeology of Utah! The cost is tuition for 3-credit hours and a $270 fee to cover gas, food and field supplies. We will be camping out in Range Creek Monday through Friday, and returning to Price Saturday and Sunday. To register for the course, please contact Jan Young at CEU Registration at 435-613-5205. If you think you might be interested but would like more information, please contact Dr. Renee Barlow at renee.barlow@ceu.edu.

Students need to bring:
Tent, sleeping bag and pad, flashlight, water bottles or hydration pack, hat with brim, day pack, leather gloves, hiking boots, lightweight long sleeved pants and shirts, sunscreen, bug repellent, rain jacket, personal items, soda or personal drinks and snacks.

Optional dig kit:
Marshalltown 5" pointing trowel, whisk broom and scoop, 3-5 meter metric tape, line level, Sharpies, assorted paint brushes.

We are also looking for volunteers with experience in archaeology who can help with less experienced volunteers in the field and archaeology lab. If you are interested in volunteering and have training and experience in site documentation or archaeological field or lab techniques, please contact Dr. Renee Barlow at renee.barlow@ceu.edu.

CEU Archaeology Laboratory Class
This fall we will offer an archaeological lab class at CEU, where we will be processing artifacts from the summer field session. The course will include an introduction to ceramic, lithic and ground stone artifacts, plant and animal remains, and human osteology. The course is scheduled to run Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in the Reeves Building and is open to anyone interested in learning more about archaeological artifacts. Students will keep a journal, process artifacts, and write a paper. For more information contact Dr. Renee Barlow at renee.barlow @ceu.edu, or contact Jan Young at CEU Registration at 435-613-5205 to enroll in the course.

We also have cool new archaeology books, activities and toys at the Prehistoric Museum, gift shop-- come visit us and check out the Hall of Archaeology!

Renee Barlow, Curator of Archaeology

Ancient Native Americans

2008-06-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

This week we documented a burial found by Lannie and Glenys Sitterud. It was originally found two years ago, and Mr. Sitterud reported it to the appropriate agencies, in compliance with state and federal laws, and in accordance with NAGPRA-- the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. First, local law enforcement officers visited the site and determined the remains are not of interest to law enforcement, i.e., not a missing person or a victim of foul play-- but probably an archaeological find. Next the appropriate archaeologists and land managers visited the site and began the consultation process, contacting several tribes that have an interest in remains from this region, and may claim affiliation. The burial was eroding out of a natural cutbank. Several tribes indicated they would like the remains to be removed and reburied, several others preferred that the burial be left to erode naturally. To date none of the contacted tribes have visited the site, so the remains are still in consultation.

Human remains can provide a great deal of information about prehistoric people and past lifeways. For archaeologists, these are a very important part of the past. For some people, however, these remains are viewed as sacred. NAGPRA requires a series of consultations and decisions by the appropriate agency consultants and Native American Tribes when certain types of remains are found. Sometimes the issues are very complex, and sometimes there are many different opinions about the best approach. There is no one solution, and each situation is unique.

Questions to think about: Are human remains sacred? Whose remains are sacred to you? Should osteological analyses, metric analyses, dna studies, and chemical analyses be conducted on Native American remains prior to repatriation? Should they be radiocarbon dated? If so, who should fund those analyses? Who should fund repatriation? Who should determine the affiliation of prehistoric human remains, and the relationship between past cultures and living peoples?

Terms to know: Paleodemography, Biological affinity, NAGPRA, Paleopathology, Secondary interment, Repatriate, Paleodietary analysis, Funerary objects

For more info about human remains or the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, visit the following websites from my online archaeology course:

Human Skeletal Remains

NAGPRA

Return to the Range Creek Wilderness

2008-05-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

This week our archaeology crew included the BLM state archeologist, Byron Loosle, and archaeologists Alysse Sowards (Vernal), Katie Hill (Texas), and Mark Estes (Nevada). We set up our base camp at the Wilcox Ranch, and on Tuesday backpacked into a remote wilderness area high above the canyon floor. We climbed about 1800 feet to the top cliff face on a large sandstone ridge and found isolated ceramics, a Fremont rock art site on a 50-foot high cliff face, and a Fremont camp site with charcoal deposits, a Cottonwood triangular point, debitage, and ceramic sherds on a ledge with boulders and pinyon and juniper trees. The petroglyph panel included two animals and four anthropomorphs, or human-forms with the classic trapezoidal bodies and helmet heads. Several of these were depicted with masks or face paint, and one was wearing a two-horned headdress, again typical of Fremont art. This panel likely dates to approximately AD 1000.

We camped that night under the stars and a full moon on a small ridge with a spectacular view of the canyon, and the next morning hiked out across a series of ledges just above Waldo's "Fortress" site, a pithouse village with the remains of five structures. We found several sets of isolated ceramics and two more archaeological sites-- a Fremont granary with an intact wood timber, and another Fremont site with lithic tools, a Uintah side-notch point, debitage and Fremont and Anasazi ceramics. Both were about 1000 years old and probably contemporaneous with both the "Fortress" and the sites we recorded the day before. We recorded these sites before heading back down to the base camp.

These sites appear to be consistent with other sites we have recorded in Range Creek since 2002, and support the hypothesis that the Fremont of Range Creek placed storage granaries and some habitation sites in defensive positions around AD 1000, probably in response to raids or theft from other Fremont farmers.

The next day was wet and rainy, and we recorded two sites lower in the canyon. One was probably an Archaic camp, approximately three to five thousand years old with a charcoal stain, a basin-shaped metate, a hammerstone, a chopping tool and several lithic flakes. The other was a Fremont slab-lined cist or pit feature with a scatter of about a hundred ceramic and lithic artifacts on and around a low ridgetop.

Friday we were scheduled to leave Range Creek, but DWR officers Mike Milburn and Alan Green warned us about the wet, slick, muddy road, so we stayed an extra night to let it dry out. We left on Saturday, and had a long drive as we waited for some sections to dry out before attempting them, and in some places crew members took a slow ride on the back bumper of Katie's truck to get up slippery, muddy hills. Near the end of the road, at a particularly steep section above the Book Cliffs, we encountered a woman in a pickup truck who had slid off the road sideways and had one wheel hanging out over the edge. She was very stuck, and had been for hours. We could not get past her, and my crew and a passing bear hunter on an ATV tried to help her out. Since we could not move, we set up a cabin tent and camped in a nice spot with a good view. We made dinner, roasted marshmallows, made Jiffy Pop and told ghost stories, and the next day, after several hours of working, DWR officer Alan Green and my crew were able to get her out of her predicament and on her way. Finally we were able to head for home.