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Show JUNE Tourists, Scientists and Bureaucrats 1996 Put Anasazi Antiquities in Jeopardy By Mark Gerard over the edge. In his recent book, In Search of the Old Ones, Roberts contrasts a Mesa Verde visit with his hike into an obscure Southern Utah canyon. Three days in, he Author David Roberts writes, he spotted a mud-walled ruin on a sheer cliff wall 400 feet above his camp. An experienced rock climber, he free-climbed up. i spring at Mesa Verde National Park, you can buy Twinkies at two grocery stores, T-shirts at four gift shops, gasoline at two stations, watch TV in a motel, dine at four restaurants, and see a slide show at the visitor center. But Anasazi dwellings? You can walk through only two — out of over 600. And for Cliff House, the jewel of Mesa Verde — you must buy a ticket and go with a pack of 50 other tourists. That’s what pushed David Roberts Floral & Design A full service florist Mon-Fri. 9 — 6 Saturday 10 - 5 801-649-4144 Holiday Village Mall Ask Volunteer Adopt Start a business Nina Take © Park City Totenburg a step. Wake to lunch Hide Bill Gates glasses am Quality Outdoor Recreation Supply Brickyard Plaza 1140 E. Brickyard Rd. #31, SLC, UT 84106 jViva la Revolucion! PAGE High on a ledge were six stone-andfor firewood. Another used the ancient mud rooms, their mortar dimpled with timbers as levers to pull down mud hand prints. walls. Corncobs littered the sand, and “Scrupulous archaeological techzigzag pictographs decorated the tan niques of one generation are viewed as cliff wall. In a hidden nook, he discovfolly by the next,” Roberts says. He cites ered a large, brown cooking pot carea 1960s-era Brigham Young University fully stashed — at least 700 years ago — study near Montezuma Creek as an until its owners could return for it. example. There, researchers collected As a child, decades earlier, Roberts every artifact found on the ground near first visited Mesa Verde. Then, he was Anasazi sites. Hundreds of thousands of free to wander, inspect and contempotshards went into plastic bags marked plate. Exploring the stone-age remains by site. stirred a lifelong passion. But the sites are now stripped bare, Today, Mesa Verde draws 700,000 and future archaeologists will never recreation consumers each year. “Yet, it know, among other things, what kinds is not tourist impact on the ruins that of pots were used in which rooms. has turned Mesa Verde so restrictive,” Worse, Roberts writes, a student poured Roberts writes. “It is bureaucracy on a all the shards into one pile and sorted rampage. The more ‘services’ a national them by ceramic style, unlinking them park offers, the more hassles the overfrom their origins. worked rangers confront. And rather than pare back a gift shop here, a snack A New School of Thought bar there, they shut down ruins A new school of archaeologists instead.” questions the wisdom of digging at all, Roberts warns that people eager to because archeological evidence is so protect Anasazi antiquities can hasten easily destroyed, field work sometimes their demise. is not published, and because Anasazi “Any special designation — making sites are holy to Native Americans. Grand Gulch, in Southern Utah, a Roberts doesn’t agree completely ‘Primitive Area,’ but makes note for example — of the losses. draws people “Certainly, excawho ‘collect’ vation without parks,” he said. publishing is just “Years ago, I as damaging as climbed in pot hunting.” Alaska’s Brooks Today, govRange, and ernment agenthere were no cies remove most other Anglos intact Anasazi Photo by; Matt Hale there. Now that artifacts that are Removed from surroundings, artifacts are it’s designated discovered and out of context (Gates) Sot) the reported. But Arctic National Park,’ it gets three Sierra few will ever be seen again by the pubClub tours a month.” lic. “How many more pots and baskets Grand Gulch, once seldom-visited, do we need packed away in dusty now draws 11,000 hikers and backbasements?” Roberts asks. packers a year. Even when a museum exhibits a stone-age yucca basket in a glass display case under florescent lights, it is out of Banned from Grand Gulch context, appearing like a trinket in a gift Since publication of his book, the shop, Roberts argues. It can not be truly federal Bureau of Land Management in Monticello has effectively banned him | appreciated away from its native environment. “Museums,” he writes, “give from Grand Gulch, he says. Because he writes about Grand Gulch, the BLM you wonders for $5 and tell you what to think in a 50-word caption.” calls him a commercial operator and won't issue him a packing permit. The Roberts suggests that we allow regions with Anasazi remains to stay BLM’s management plan allows no new commercial operators. untouched as much as possible. We can’t modify them with roads and serRobert’s book chronicles damage to Anasazi sites beginning with the cliffvices to be safe and easily “consumed” dwelling Anasazi, themselves, who by recreationers, without destroying their integrity and meaning, he says. ripped up earlier pithouses built by a Hikers should stop displaying gathered previous culture of people known as Anasazi pot shards on prominent Basketmakers, to re-use the stone. Later, both Navajos and Christians defaced canyon rocks, and stop building cairns leading to hidden ruins. His book does rock art for religious reasons. Recently, not reveal specific ruin locations. Roberts even found cow dung on the When Roberts found that 700-yearroof of a delicate kiva. old cooking pot in its canyon wall hidAnglo pot hunters, vandals, and ing place, he didn’t touch it. But he didarchaeologists, have taken their toll. n't report it, either. “I left it where it One early archeological expedition belongs,” he said. @ burned the roof beams of cliff dwellings 16 |