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Show Tribune Staff Photos by Al Hartmann Petroglyphs, above left, and pictograph, bottom, are found near town of Emery. Note rainbow, above. 1 W'&L JL. Judy Magid Tribune Lifestyle Writer High above the mountain k Io de- sert, ancient figures etched m rock stand silent witness to a people with a continuity of basic form for nearly 10,000 years. Animals, real and fanciful, intertwine with powerful trapezoidal bodied figures typical of the later Fremont culture, and stand guard over the valley. PRICE - They call it Castle Country. Dr. J. Eldon Dorman, Price, ophthalmologist, always has had an eye for this beautiful scenery around Carbon and Emery Counties. A class in geology at the College of Eastern Utah turned him into an amateur archaeologist and expert on the areas rock art. Leading a Rock Art Safari after the Castle Country Medical Symposium this summer, Dr. Dorman spoke of the archaeological finds in the area and the power of the volunteer. I had only minimal knowledge about the artifacts and art of this area until a group of business and professional people decided to take a Narrow trail leads safari members to enormous rock panel petroglyph dominated by rainbow. ic TK g' Hai Dr. J. Eldon Dorman conducts annual rock safari. geology class in safari began. 1960, he said as the Dr. Quinn A. Whiting, one of our Ginny Albo, left, Kerry Wanser, Christina Albo, Heather Dorman, 7? m VC Tt' A 1 group said, Why dont you get together something for a display? I said, All right. My wife and I began making expeditions to areas where we heard there was rock art. Start With Volunteers That was the beginning of the Prehistoric Museum in Price. By 1961, the museum and the displays were under way. The museum has become the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum. The college provides some funds and much expertise. Most members of the staff are volunteers serving on the board of directors. (See accompanying story ) We started coming to the Rochester Creek Rock Art sife long before there was a trail, Maureen Dorman told Gmny Albo, who, along with Dr. Dominic Albo and daughter, Christina, climbed high above the junction of Rochester Creek and the Muddy River. The Albos, Salt Lake City, were part of the medical group Jeeping through the area. The rock art on the wall is wonderful. Each time you look at it, you see something else, Mrs. Dorman said The Jeep safari has been a part of Salt Lake City, view rock art done perhaps a thousand years ago. the medical symposium for the pas seven years. Families are invited t bring a picnic lunch. A small pari with modern facilities is a twice-da- i ly stop The culture represented in the (painted) and petroglyphs (pecked or chipped in the rocks surface) m Castle Country are thought to be peculiar to Utah. No one knows much about the ancient people, but it is thought that at about 500 AD., the old hunting and gathering culture gave way to a parb-lfarming culture, Dr. Dorman ex plained. He added that many of the farming ideas may have been borrowed from the Anasazi people to the south. Castle Country Cultures Ive always thought to myself that the Fremont culture on our side of the Colorado River was sort of a poor relative of the Anasazi culture on the other side of the tracks, Dr. Dorman said. The entire Castle Country area shows evidence of being host to life for thousands of years The Cleveland-Lloyd quarry is world famous for the number of dinosaur bones which have been removed. It has been designated a National Landmark by the Bureau of Land Management. Historical Figures Another historical find unique to the area are the Pilling Figurines. These figures are made of unbaked clay and decorated with clay ornaments. They were discovered by Clarence Pilling, Price, in 1950 and are considered, in archaeological literature, to excel, both in beauty and technical construction, to others of comparative afce in the American Southwest. Among the pictographs and petroglyphs on canyon walls are three bears, multiple mountain sheep and goats, and, in one small painted panel, three Fremonters holding hands resembling the large Daisy Chain pictograph at a site more than 60 miles away. Deciding what it all means is something that archaeologists and tourists have pondered for years. Bridging the Ages Use your imagination, Dr. Dorman urged safari members. "No one ever will know for certain what ideas these people meant to communi-catp. unteers aid PRICE People arriving at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum at 8 on a Saturday morning shouldnt be surprised if the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce opens the door. "I was the only one available this morning, Thelma Jones said. And one of the nicest days to be here is when Dr. Dorman (J. Eldon Dorman, Price ophthalmologist and assistant curator) starts his Jeep safari at the museum. (See accompanying story ) Mrs. Jones, whose job as Chamber of Commerce executive director includes supervising personnel and buying items for the gift shop at the museum, said that aside from a few paid staff members, the museum is run by volunteers. "It was started In 1961 as an entirely volunteer project, she said. Then the College of Eastern Utah assumed the reponsibility of basic financial needs and expert help with Don Burge of the geology department acting as curator. But it couldnt run without volunteers. The museum Is filled with displays life in the and pictures desert culture, believed the most ancient in Utah. Charts list a brief history of the people who adopted a hunting and gathering lifestyle more than 10,000 years ago. The Fremont culture, a later tribe, also left examples of art Anasazl Art Represented There is a collection of developmental Pueblo pottery from San Juan County, the Judge Fred W. Keller collection, offering good examples of the Anasazi culture with fine pottery pieces. The Pilling Figurines are exceptionally beautiful, Mrs. Jones said, remsioric museum describing unbaked clay figures discovered in 1950 by Clarence Pilling, Price, in a small side canyon of Range Creek. The figurines are thought to be 800 to 900 years old. Of special pride to the museum is Al, the AUosaurus skeleton. The bones were found in the Cleveland-Lloy- d Dinosaur Quarry, about 30 miles southeast of Price. The AUosaurus skeleton is unique in that it is 70 percent fossil bone and only 30 percent plaster reproduction, Mrs. Jones said. Most museum dinosaur skeletons do not contain as high a percentage of real bone. The bones, extremely brittle, were prepared and assembled by Don Burge and Dr. James A. Jensen, Brigham Young University Geology Museum curator, preparator of dinosaurs at Harvard University, Cam bridge, Mass. The excavation and sorting of the bones was conducted by James Madsen, then chief curator of paleontology, Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Utah. The Price museum has plans for the construction of two more dinosaurs to join the fierce, meat-eatin- g allosaur and the vegetarian campto-sau- r which are on display. The allosaur was so ferocious, Mrs. Jones said, that bones of a brontosaur, an extremely large vegetarian, have been found with scratches made by the teeth of an allosaur which broke off and were buried with the bones. World Famous Quarry "All the bones were taken from the Cleveland-Lloy- d Quarry, Mrs Jones said. There will be a Stegosaurus (who had large armor plates on his back) and a Camarasaurus, another large meat eater almost the same size as the AUosaurus. We are told that we will have more original skeletons from the Cleveland-Lloyquarry, with actual fossil bones, than any other museum in the world, she said. Mrs. Jones added that few of the museums board members realized their interest until they began working for the museum. There are 12 members on the board. Not only do they serve on the board, but also they help put up displays, hammer, saw and dust. d Board members include Mrs. Jones, Mr. Burge, Dr. Dorman, Ray Downard, Nancy Paniguchi, Marvin Mabbutt, Bill Branson, Bill Austin, Greg Payne, Layne Miller, Chuck Zehnder and Sam Rowley. Our other staff includes museum aides and sales clerks Caroline Asay, Marie Ericson and Shelli Johnson, Mrs. Jones said. Viewer imagination suggested many things, particularly at spectacular panels overlooking Rochester Creek and Muddy River where a rainbow hovered over multiple figures and a rope climbed up the wall toward the heavens. Some scenes seem chipped around a mark already in the rock. Others were created on blank rock. All show the desert patina that takes centuries to form. Speak of Faith Some figures may represent religious belief or superstition. Some cause raised eyebrows (Well, you send kids up to chip arrowheads and keep a watch out for enemies and when they get bored they draw pictures! was one tourist comment). All figures speak of the faith of people to endure in that hard land. Dr. Dormans safari covered an area requiring 150 miles of driving on rough roads. There are other sites than those covered by members of the symposium each year. For more information, contact the. College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, Price, or the Price Chamber of Comrrterce. |
