Indy Benson
New member
By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY
HORSE CANYON, Utah ? With considerable regret, Utah rancher Waldo Wilcox is inviting the public in to see his magnificent secret.
For a half century, Wilcox, 75, ran cattle on a remote ranch deep inside the Roan Cliffs of eastern Utah. He also preserved one of the most significant archaeological collections in North America: hundreds of ancient homes and artifacts left by Fremont Indians a thousand years ago.
The 4,200-acre ranch of sandstone cliffs, broad meadows and pine forests was recently bought by the state of Utah, which on Wednesday let the media in for the first time to see a small glimpse of another time, another world.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, for me and for North American archaeology," says Duncan Metcalfe, an archaeologist and curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History. "Waldo has left us a treasure trove here."
Among the finds are mummified remains tucked into the cliffs, carefully preserved in strips of beaver skin.
For the casual tourist, the area now known as the Range Creek Wildlife Management Area will hold less attraction than the spectacular cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde or the elaborate villages of Chaco Canyon. Here, the hundreds of pit houses, granaries, and examples of rock art known as pictographs and petroglyphs are mostly hidden from view and not as visually appealing as other ancient Indian sites. But, says Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones, "in terms of research potential, this is unbelievable."
The sites here may offer important clues to puzzling questions about the Fremont Indians, hunter-gatherers and sometime farmers who mostly occupied Utah. Like their Anasazi cousins to the south, they appear to have faded out around 1300 after 700 years of occupation.
What happened to them, and why? What can they tell us about the origins of agricultural cultivation? Why are so many of their dwelling and food storage sites situated in clearly defensible postures high up on cliffs?
"What it gives us is a laboratory," Metcalfe says. "One of the big questions is the origins of agriculture. The Fremont are the perfect test case for doing that research and Range Creek is the perfect place. ... There's 100 years of (archaeology) work in this canyon."
Metcalfe described the Fremont peoples' daily lives as a constant struggle for survival. They subsisted at times on wild game and food like nuts and berries they could gather. At other times, they raised corn, but without irrigation their crops often failed. Ultimately, he says, they abandoned their semi-permanent homes for a wandering life.
Running cattle his entire adult life while his wife and children spent much of their time in the town of Green River, Wilcox was hardly a trained scientist. But he protected what he had.
The first road into this area wasn't built until 1947, and even now access can be treacherous over 25 miles of rutted and steep, dirt track. Wilcox and his father erected gates to keep the public out, and particularly the media, who they felt might bring unwanted publicity.
Even so, the area's significance didn't escape all attention. An expedition from Harvard University's Peabody Museum came through in the 1930s and catalogued a handful of sites. And locals knew something significant lay beyond the rim of the Roan Cliffs.
But since purchasing the ranch in 1951, Wilcox, his father and brother kept the public at bay.
"I wanted to keep it the way it is," says Wilcox, who reluctantly sold the property, citing his advancing age and the ranch's inability to support his family any more. "If I could have turned back the clock to when I was 20, I wouldn't have sold it."
Even now, Wilcox frets about the future of his once-private museum. He knows full well what has happened to so many sites in the West that have been plundered by people stealing pottery and other relics. "I'm afraid the public will ruin it," he says. "You'll be awfully lucky if there's anything here for your kids."
Metcalfe says after 25 years in the archaeology game, he's seen at most a dozen undisturbed ancient Indian sites.
The task facing Utah officials is how to protect Wilcox's site, yet still allow the public to visit. A management plan to address that question is in the works.
As hard as the cowboy life was for Wilcox, life was exponentially more severe for the Fremont. Water was life, and there wasn't much of it.
"They were fearless, absolutely fearless," says Metcalfe, marveling at how the Fremont positioned their grain storage structures and pit houses hundreds of feet up sheer cliffs. "We have some sites we don't know how to get technical climbers in."
"It was a bunch of small families trying to eke out a living. It was getting harder and harder for them, perhaps as a consequence of drought," Metcalfe says. "These folks were always on the edge."