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Field Guide to Southwestern Petroglyphs & Rock Art Symbols-2 Vol.
Ancient villages unearthed in Utah
Published June 25, 2004
SALT LAKE CITY -- For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept
most outsiders off his land and his secret under wraps: a string of ancient
Indian settlements so remarkably well-preserved that arrowheads and beads
are still out in the open.
Archeologists are calling it one of the most spectacular
finds in the West.
Hidden deep inside Utah's nearly inaccessible Book
Cliffs region, 130 miles from Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages
run for 12 miles and include hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries,
stone houses built halfway underground, rock shelters and the mummified
remains of ancient inhabitants.
The site was occupied for at least 3,000 years until
abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously
vanished.
What sets this ancient site apart from other, better-known
ones in Utah, Arizona or Colorado is that it has been left virtually untouched
by looters, with the ground still littered with arrowheads, arrow shafts,
beads and pottery shards in places.
"It was just like walking into a different world,"
said Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones, who was overcome on his first
visit in 2002.
Mr. Wilcox, 74, said: "It's like being the first
white man in there, the way I kept it. There's no place like it left."
The secret is only now coming to light, after the
federal and state governments paid Mr. Wilcox $2.5 million for the 4,200-acre
ranch, which is surrounded by wilderness study lands. The state took ownership
earlier this year but has not decided how to control public access.
"It's a national treasure. There may not be another
place like it in the continental 48 states," Duncan Metcalfe, a curator
with the Utah Museum of Natural History, said yesterday by satellite phone
from the site.
Mr. Metcalfe said a team of researchers has documented
about 200 pristine sites occupied as many as 4,500 years ago, "and we've
only looked in a few places."
Mr. Wilcox said some skeletons have been exposed
by shifting winds under dry ledges.
"They were little people, the ones I've seen dug
up. They were wrapped like Egyptians, in strips of beaver skin and cedar
board, preserved as perfect," he said.
The Fremont, a collection of hunter-gatherers and
farmers, preceded more modern American Indian tribes on the Colorado Plateau.
Archaeologists think the sites might have been first
occupied as much as 7,000 years ago and they could shed light on the earliest
inhabitants of North America, who are thought to have arrived via the Bering
Strait about 10,000 years ago.
The settlements are along the Range Creek, which
sustained ancient people in the canyon until it possibly dried up in a
drought, Mr. Wilcox said.
These days, the creek runs year-round, abundant
with trout and shaded by cottonwood and box elder trees. Douglas fir covers
the canyon sides. The canyon would have been rich in wildlife: elk, deer,
bighorn sheep, bear, mountain lions, wild turkeys -- all animals that Mr.
Wilcox said are still around, but in lesser numbers because of hunters.
"I didn't let people go in there to destroy it,"
said Mr. Wilcox, whose parents bought the ranch in 1951 and threw up a
gate to the rugged canyon. "The less people know about this, the better."
Although the University of Utah hired a seasonal
caretaker and students from three Utah schools are working the sites this
summer, Mr. Wilcox worries about looting.
He said he gave up the land on a promise of protection
from the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, which transferred the
ranch to public ownership.
The promise barely assured Mr. Wilcox, but he said
he knew one thing: "I'm getting old and couldn't take care of it."
He said he asked $4 million for the ranch but settled
for $2.5 million, moved to Green River and retired.
It was not until 2002 that archaeologists realized
the full significance of Range Creek.
Although many structures are still standing or visible,
others could be buried. Archaeologists have not done any excavations yet,
simply because "we have too big a task just to document" sites in plain
view, Mr. Jones said.
Next week, Mr. Metcalfe plans to take the press
to the ranch, which is 30 miles off the nearest paved highway over rough,
mountainous terrain.
**
Easy
Field Guide to Southwestern Petroglyphs & Rock Art Symbols-2 Vol.
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