Utah Statewide Archaeological Society Newsletter, Volume 1, Number 4, December 1955

A Newsletter December, 1955

Vol. 1, No.4 COT'lTEfnS

Editor's Notes ~useu~ of Anthropology Archeological Excavations Near Salina, Vtah

by Dee e. Taylor tln -! veT'S I ty of Utah Map

Page 1 Page 2Page 3 Page I)

EDITOl1'S N0TES Th 1R numbe I' of Vtah Archeo!..9.ID' w III camp I e te the f 11'5 t volumeo It is hoped that It wIll be p5ss1ble to continue issuing fOlll' numbe t'S a year and at somewha t more regu la r in terva Is ..

Membership In the society has grown so much that it has been necessary to duplicate additional copies of earlier-numbers to supply the demand. The ititerest in our organlzstion Is most encouraging.

If Bny member of the society fails to receive an issue of the newsletter, I would ap~reclate being notIfied so that J can send the missing numbero " Conferences . '""'The season for P' ofess iona I conferences is Just about oVGr, but it is possible that some of the members of the Utah Statewide Archeological Society will be interested in attendin~ one or more archeological conferente~ ilext summer or fall. The Pecos Conference fa~

Southwestern ArCheology was held in Santa Fe, N ..

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middle of ]a st Augm-st and was followed by the Great Basin Archeolog~ leal Conference In Los Angeles, CalIf. Next summer, the Pecos Conference will be held In flagstaff, Arizona, and the Gr£at Basin Conference in Scdt Lake City or Brighton, t'tah .. The plains Conference for Archeolosy was held as usual ThanksgivIng weekend in Lincoln, Nebras!<:a .. Since all three of these are open to anyone interested, I wIll carry notIces of exact meeting places and t lm(~ s before next year's sesslonsv I hope that mooy of the membe rs of the USAS will be able to attend at least the Great Basin Conf er ence , since it will be hetd in Utah and wi 11 be devoted in part 1.0 l.Jt.ah

arC heology •

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utah Archeolo gy is mailed to members of the Utah St~tewide All correspond enc'8 S hou Id be d i rt~C t ed to the edltor--James H. runnerson, Dep~rtment of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

A7ch e'o"rc)g 1 caT';'~ oc i ety.

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This Issue

fortunate In havin£j In this issue a more detailed report of the University of Utah excavations between Emery and Sa1J.na.' MI'. Taylor, the aut/'wr of the feature article, is a graduate student in Bnt.hropoloflY at· the University of IJachlgan and is a former student of the Unlv€t'sity of Utah. His home was in Salt Lake City. He served as Dr. JeJsa D. Jennings' field assistant during the 1955 season and Is l~ the process of writIng the complete repor't of the summer's eXC::Clva,t ions.

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The inclusion of photooraphs ~Ith Mr9, Taylor's article is possible hecause I wns able to secure over-run from another similar report~ A future article will also include photographs secured In the same way. Since utah Archeology Is produced at a minimum cost, It is not possible-rDhBve plates made solely fot' the news 1~1tter ~

an

it!;usHum of Anthropo l oBl of Anthropology at the University of Utah is a part of the Department of Anthropo~ogy md houses the departmental offices as well as the displays, laboratory, and storage facilItIes. The museum is located in Bul,ldlng 411 on the University's upper campus and Is open (free of charge) from 9 a.mo to 5 porn. Monday through friday. The Incl~ded map will help you find the museum if you are not well acquainted with the campuso

~--~-'fhe"' .Museum

The disp1ays are devoted primarIly to the archeology and ethnology of Utah. More general exhibits deal with Ncrth American Indian art, weapons, applied anthropology and the various branches of anthropology.

In the course of a year, the museum Is visited by thousands of grade and high school students brought hi their teachers. University stcdents, especially those studying anthropology, also make extensive use of the displays.

And last, but not least, visits by the general public are always most welcome.

ARCHE0L(GICAL

EXCAVI\TI:-:-,~·: T'IC:A:~

SALINA, UTAH

Dee Co Taylor

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The University of Utah snmMer field school in archeology has n dual purpose. First, t he student is taught archeologIcal field techniques. Secondly" the clas~ furthers reseArch in t'tah's prehistory, to answer-such questions as: who were the early inhabitants; how did··they live and what was their relationship to oth'er known ancie~t peoples; what happened to them and why.

Durino the 1955 o;11mmer session the t'niversity field school operated out of Salina, Utah, investigating BItes some _ 3D to 40 miles northeast of there on the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Mountains~ The terrain under Inspection was from over 7000 ft. i.n elevation in the Wasatch Mountains to about 5000 ft. in the foothills. Wind and streams have carved the landscape into a series of canyons, steep sandstone abutments, and lsoI ate d bu t t e s •

Evidence of the aboriginal Fremont people Is plentiful among the pines and aspens at "higher elevations and on the sage and Juniper covered sandstone lmolls at a slightly lower level.

These early inhabitants painted or pecked figures of costumed men or animals upon sheer sandstone wallsQ They also cleverly concealed their rock and mud granaries, blendIng them with the surrounding rockso The summer's activities centered arou~d the excavation of two Fremont sItes. Quite probably two time periods are represented by these sites.

The Old Woman archeological site lies across the hiGhway Just south of an Interesting rock formation thirty-two miles n01"theast of Salina on Utah Highway 10. The format.ion is an Isolated pinnacle, a part of a steep buff sandstone ledge which has been eroded and carved by the elements so that it resembles a woman, arms folded, who appears to be brooding over the vista below. The site consisted of an open and relatIvely smooth at'ea, which extended sl)me 600 ft .. south from the state road and lay -just east of Sam Allen's shearing corral. This area was selected for excavation because the presence of a lew mound covered with pottery fr'a~J rn\'!nts, pieces of burned adobe, and broken grindi ng stones ind l. catGd buried, perhaps ruined, str uctures.

The Fre mont Indians who lived throughout the eastern por- ti on of Utam, see m to have prefe r red ra ncher i a-ty pe dwelli ng units instead of hou~es concentrated into villaces such as the l<.ll"'ge Pueblo tov/ns. DwellinGS were scattered s mall units of two 01' tll!'e~; houses, presumably located close to corn fields.

Probably each small settlement was inhabited by klns mena The Old Woman site appears to have been one 5uch unit .. Our' excavati on s revealed that it contained three pithouses. In the construction

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of nne of these typical dwelling units, a hole was dug into the ~~ound, the wall of this pit was thickly plasterea with adohe mUds and a wooden superstructure was erected, supported by the edges of the excavation and several stout center posts. Each house had a center fireplace with a carefully modelled adobe rim; and floors of hard mud. Also, each of the three houses had been destroyed by fire; sections of burned roof and support timbers, along with ash and charcoal, lay upon the flo~r. In each house we found abundant pottery, even whole pots. Two houses contained charred fra£;ments of basketry.

In one of these pithouses a small eist was located ag ainst the plastered wall. Small vertIcal poles had been s e t in a half-circle around this 'cist and several pots were found c lose by. Within the pit were found the flat roc k slab whIch had once been the lid and five small figurines. These small f i g tlt'es~=two male, two female, and one perhaps a child-··are a l most identical wIth the PIIlings figurines fro m east of Pr ice (Morss, 1954)~ The figurInes, with their Intricately m od ~ 11ed ap p liques, are important, not only because of their probable religious functlon~ but also because t hey furnish a wealth of detail about dress and costume~

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addition to the three pit lodges, t he Old Woman s i t e contained a large two-room surface struct u r e " Two ph ases of occupation were evident here. In the e Brlie~t rh ase the walls were built of adobe which was r-ac ~{cd around ve l' it G a I pol e san d h 0 r i zan tal wIt h e s we rep lac e d in the mu d Th e we st room contained a fireplace, and a s mall slab-lined stor'a ge pit.

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For a period the village consisted of these four Then the surface structure burned and collapsed.

All of the burned adobe scattered over the s i te can be attri bu ted to this fire and the subsequent rem oval of rubble pri or t6 rebul1ding~ In the rebuilding of t his structure n scond floor was laid over some of the rub ble; the old wall base s we re used p but the new wall s were bu i lt entirely of adobe a nd lacked the vertical poles~ In c onjunction with this phase two r ecta ngul a r (ca. ' 6 -ft. x 8 ft .. ) adobe storage granaries were bu ilt upon. the s urface. ~ tr u ct u res.

At the southeast cornvr of the site the ground rises sharply Into a pine-covered hillock, and here, some 80 f t. highel', ovrirlool\lng the house~i and' affording CI niew up a nd c1mvn Ivic Creek Ce.nyonl/ we fCH1T}d l"·od}S:l, large and smalt, standins on edGe and nrrBnced<lnt~ g ~ough 20 ft . square .

Ther'f; no .artifacts, or' even e'·.;!.di':ncc of fiI'e, nS~joclQtcd with t.h~~H! stcnc~j ... ~;uch r·ocJ.~ enclosures} sq1.lnl'e or rOt:n0. p hav(! frequently been rcport,\:!d from Fl'crnont sites. but as yet tlH': II' funct ion rernn ins problema t il;ti 1.

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The artifacts recovered from the Old Woman site include bone awls, indented-base points, side-notched points, knives, grlhdinD stones, smooth stone spheres, and abundant pottery which Is plaIn gray, painted, inCised, or decorated by applIque.

The other site excavated by the field school was

1 oca ted 3.4 mil es north of HI !;)hway, 10, and no rth a nd east of

the M & 0 ranch bulldinss. Here a sandstone erosional remnant forms a wedge about 1000 ft. long and 75 ft .. wide between two large alfalfa fieldS. This ridge, an ancient Indian habitation sIte, W8S called Poplar Knob because of dead or dyIng poplar trees which surrounded an abandoned ranch house located at the base of the nertheastern slope. At the ea'stern end, the flat-topped knoll rises steeply to a height of 50-60 ft .. above the fIelds below; towards the west the slope in more gradual. The site was covered with sage, cactI, desert shrubs, and a few Juniper trees; much of the site was bal'ren rock.

The presence of archeological material was indicated by an abundant surface pottery and by parallel al1snments of ' r~cks standing on edge, the remains of fallen masonry walls which were partially exposed through the ssanty surface 5011.

Three structures had been built on top of the rid~e. one was a single-room house (16 x 2Q ft.) which contained four postholes and a small slab-pave'd fIreplace near the sOl-ithwest corner. The two other bufldlngs, 230 ft. farther west, were located on the very hi~hest portion of the knoll, md were less than ZO ft. apart. The smallest of these was long and narrow (26 ft. x 8 ft.) and was divided into two rooms by a center pa,' tIt i on. thou£;h one room conta lned a sma 11 flreplace, this structur~ probably served more as a storage granary than as a dwelling unit. The other house began as a square building (20 x 20 ft.) with four central roof-supporting posts arranged around an adobe-rimmed, slab-paved fireplaceo LateI", a second narrow room or storage bin was added onto the east end. The floors of all the buIldings were Simply a layer of adobe mud laid over bedrock uandstone.

None of the structures on Poplar Knob showed Rny evidence of burning.

Whereas the constructIon on the Old Woman site was almost entirely of adobe, the stl"uct\~r·es · on Poplar J{nob were built of adobe and masonryo Beginning with a fo ~ ndntlon / layer of mud, the walls were buIlt up of irregular hlocks or slabs of sandstone. Adobe was packed between the rocks and filled into every crack and crevice to form a strong, solId wa 11.

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This diffei'ence in technIque of constr'uctlon and a difference in the amoLnt of painted pottery are two of the criteria which suggest that Poplar Knob was occupied at a S omewha t la te l' pc r lod than the Old Woman sl te ~ The pIcture presented here is quIte sketchy; details will be available after laboratory analysis and comparison of the artifact collection .. As a preliminary statement obout the ~life way" of the Fremont IndIans, we might say that they lived com~ortably in snug, well-built houses which contained storage cists, bark couches and fireplaces. To secure food} they COMbined huntlnr with tt1b ralsin~ of maIze. They made good pottery and baskets and. used a variety of stone and hone tools. From outside the area they obtained shell and some typz s of pottery. Bone gaming pieces and perhaps smoot.h stone spheres were used In ga~es. Figurines, pictographs of masked dancers, the strange arrangements of rocks md boulders into squares nnd circles, t"le scarcity of human burials, and perhaps the frequent burning of buildings offer tantalizing, if ill-understood, clues to their ceremonial lifeo

The Fremont peoples ap~ear to. have been most similar to those Indians known archeologlcally from central and westerri Utah. The~e waS certainly some interrelationship whth the Pueblos and ~erhaps some influence from the Indians of the Plainso

BI B1.IOG RAPHY

Morss, Noel 1951'1

ItClay Fi~llrines of the American Southwest." .

Pai2ers of lo~J[,

Vol.

t~Peab.£dy Mt2..~e~m of~!~r

XLl~oD

10

icanArcheo·· Cambridge, MaSSe

Figure 1.

a.

old Woman, SIte (4ZSV7).

View from north across surface rooms

after exc.avation.

Evidence of two phases

of buIldIng can be seen In walls of near room.

Details of wall construction are

shown in photograph below. b.

Plthouse located

Im~1ediately

to t.he

right of the rooms shown In' Fig. I a.

Note fireplace In center, postholes marked with pegs, and heavy adobe plaster on

near wa_1.!.. c.

Cross-section (center of ,1cture)

of wall of surface room shown In Fig. 1 a.

Note irregularly spaced molds from posts included in wall. do

Clay flgut'lnes found In small clst In

floor of plthouse.

(Cist in right fore¡

ground of photoaraph above).

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MUSEUM OF AN'.mROPOLOGY

Bul1d:lng 411 utnVERSITY OF UTAH Salt Lake City

Hours:

9:00 , Mt~ ... 5:00 Monday through

Friday

Bus:

Take "Fort Douglas"

bus to the "Universj t L-._---,r--_ __ __ _ _ __ Annex" stop.

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