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Show t I I : I I i i -V- "'"k :' - - - - . . -. .1 V ..k .':. --. - J.:.. -1 -4-'.. "Wfy0rr -if-as.. - - ' ,: , . J. - . jJX. : . - L-: " '''- " . r " - w Y.:-'- , 3 . -..-.-..;:-'! ' - tD"1 " . ' , -'- . , - - y CJionlands National Park the past and present merge. The large upright ,s a location marker built by a uranium prospector In the 1950's. The smaller rocks scattered around It are worked pieces of (lint "mined" from a nearby vein by early Indian Inhabitants. iiViffzaffora on Fop at CiviUzfwfl... Ihafs the Stow of SmtlwasV Utah Bi Aleene Nielon Civilizations are like the jsocs. They come and go. bst of us take it for granted ill our way of life will Btinue pretty much un-Kjed un-Kjed indefinitely. That is. e Jo unless we're able to take 'tip to Italy. Greece. Peru or ce such place w e can read out in our history books. ' my year many people take ips to those places to view I e remains of earlier cultures. I fter such a visit, the feeling in our way of life is stable Uy be replaced with a sense (uncertainty. Bat those of us fortunate to te in Southeastern Utah )t't have to take long tpensive trips to observe rilizations as fascinating as ly to be found on any utinent. Were surrounded 'evidence of several cultures at may go back as far as the k of Christ, or nearly two ousand years. We can see if tools and dwellings left the earliest people who ied in crudely finished holes rthe ground to the sophisti-l sophisti-l cliff dwelling Anasazi. !hat we can't see but can only ess at is the why and how of ' irrise and fall. Perhaps our jorance is the key to a full enjoyment in observing the things they left behind. We Cn Wonder Comparing our life style with the Cliff Dwellers, for example, we can wonder w hat they did w ith their spare time. We can watch TV, read a book, listen to the radio or go to a movie to take up slack time. But we know they didn't have these things. Did they have any spare time? Or were they too busy finding food and shelter to need diversions? They must have been kept busy making cooking and storage utensils as well as other tools such as arrowheads and axes. It would also be interesting to know whether they thought their way of life was a permanent thing. Luckily for some of these remnants of earlier cultures are within a few minutes drive of Moab. There are dwellings nestled in caves high above the river and many petro-glvphs petro-glvphs carved on canyon cliffs. Moab seems to have been a "frontier" for the Anasazi because artifacts and dwellings dwell-ings aren't as plentiful around here as in some other places. Mesa Verde, of course, is probably the best known center of the Cliff Dwellers. But other places such as Hovenweep, Betatakin Atec and Canyon de Chelly are also well known. Just the mention of their names is enough to rouse the wanderlust in some people. Less well known are the thousands of small Basket Maker. Pueblo, and Cliff Dweller communities without names. These are more difficult to get to and arc often difficult to even find. This is probably beneficial for historians histor-ians as there are a few-unimaginative few-unimaginative people who take pleasure in destroying anything from a school w indow to these priceless monuments of the past. Takes Too Much Work Fortunately, even the relics damaged by vandals can't totally be obliterated without great effort on their part. Therefore, those of us who enjoy a sense of history can still see and wonder about the things left behind by these little known people, things such as intricate designs on broken pottery, the painstakingly painstak-ingly fitted rocks in a granary or dwelling, fingerprints in the mud used to cement rocks together or grinding tools used to make flour. Canyonlands National Park has many clift dwellings within its boundaries as well as world famous drawings and petro-glyphs. petro-glyphs. Less well known are the hundreds of lone dwellings and small communities scattered scat-tered on the fringes of the park. While they are more difficult to find and get to, the difficulty is tempered by the thrilling sense of discovery when you locate them and the fact that relatively few people have seen them as yet. Too Many to List There are so many sites in Southern L'tah alone that it would be impractical to try and list them all even if it were possible. For people w ho want to study an unrecorded prehistory pre-history there are countless places to go to gain an insight into the past. Southeast of Monticello, for example, is Montezuma Creek. You could spend a lifetime exploring this one area and still not see it all. There are advantages to visiting there because you can see undisturbed sites as well as sanctrioned archaeologicval digs. Brigham Young Univers-sity Univers-sity has excavated several sites there with one Pueblo ruin being perhaps the most distinctive. We understand the exposed part of the structure was built by the last of three civilizations living on that site. - . .. i 8sa Verde, Betatakin and Hovenweep are well known .rwarrtpies of tne Anasaz cuture. Less well known are the 'ousands of smaller communities and single sites of the Basket Maker, Pueblo and Cliff Dweller. This example of a well preserved and camouflaged dwelling is just off the road In Recapture Creek near Blanding. Evidence of two previous cultures has been found there. Further south. BYU has excavated a hill containing a fairly large sized Basket Maker community. The crude-ness crude-ness of the rooms; little more than shallow holes dug into the ground with rock slabs to make the rooms, is offset by the size of the site. Today you can still sec the rooms but sand and weeds are rapidly filling them. Well Hidden Ruins For those who haven't visited Montezuma Creek, you should be aw are that there are hundreds of well preserved cliff dwellings all along the canyon so well camouflaged that it takes a sharp eye to see them. If you do go there, look for them. Seeing the variety of shapes and sizes is an experience in itself. Another easy to get to example of the past civilizations civiliza-tions is the Edge of the Cedars Pueblo just outside of Blanding. Bland-ing. This site was excavated just recently. However, like the Pueblo in Montezuma Creek, we understand that it, too, is the latest of three separate civilizations built on the same site. That is it's the last unless you consider the residents of Blanding the fourth culture to reside on the site. Come to think about it, that's something to ponder. The areas mentioned are just a small fraction of "pre-historical" sites in the Southeastern corner of Utah, but they will serve to point out the fascinating past of this still little known country. To many of us, this past is as exciting as the ruins of Athens, the Inca temples of Peru, or the Colliseum at Rome. Maybe a couple of thousand years from now this area will still be remote enough that people will find the leftover pop and beer cans and car bodies from our civilization as exciting as some of us today consider arrow heads, metates and pottery shards. |