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Show Panguitch Archaeologist At Blanding Area Site Richard Talbot, son of Mamie Talbot, Panguitch, and a Panguitch native son, is currently working as part of a 15-membcr team of undergraduate and graduate students from universities from Connecticut to California to complete research for a federal government multiple use requirements report at an archeological site near Blanding. The archaeologsits who are working in Recapture, Wpth. north of Blanding are beginning to unravel the mystery of why the Anasazi Pueblo Indians abandoned the Four Corners area of Utha more than 700 years ago. The archaeologists are under contract with tire San Juan County Water Conservancy District to excavate and analyze a minimum of eight sites which will eventually be covered when an earth-fill dam is built across the ash. "Each of the sites was selected as representative of a particular time period which showed habitation between 600 A.D. and approximately 1250 A.D.," and Asa Nielson who is project director and director of cultural resource management services for the Brigham Young University Museum of Peoples and Cultures. "For nearly 75 years, archaeologists have attempted to discover what caused the Anasazi Indians to abandon the area," he said. "We're now beginning to Find fairly good evidence that a combination of drought, over population and environmental decline probably caused their departure." "One of the unique features of Recapture Wash is the continuous occupation from the earliest to the latest Anasazi time period," the archaeologist explained. "It's possible that the wash was a favored environmentalarea." In contrast, he said that Cedar Mesa, which is approximately 20 miles southwest of Blanding, was occupied for a relatively short period of time, then abandoned, then reoccupied and then abandoned permanently. That type of abandonment and reoc-cupation is typical of ancient sites in much of the San Juan County area. The University of Utah is involved as subcontractor for analysis of lithlc materials (arrowheads, stone tools, etc.), macrofossils (seeds) and ground stone tools, Nielson said. The "scientists are comparing food and preservation implements for each period. "Beginning in the earlier parts of the time period being studied, natives primarily on wild plant foods such as berries and seeds and small game such as rabbits, rodents, deer and mountain sheep," Nielson stated. "They had no domesticated animals at that time." "Implements already recovered from that early period indicate a semi-nomadic lifestyle. This is known becuase the seeds were collected from a wide area, and clays for the ceramic pottery came from diversified sources," he continued. The director pointed out that in later periods, the Indians became more dependent on domesticated plants such as corn, beans and squash. They also domesticated wild turkeys. Evidence of these food sources has been found throughout the region. The scientists are also attempting to find out why a productive food supply system failed to support the population and to answer questions about social and in tercommunity changes. Most of the eight sites being excavated by the BYU crew are located in a ravine which now has water in it occasionally. It is presumed that when the Anasazis lived there, the canyon had a fairly permanent source of water. No one is really sure when the environment began to change from a fairly stable year-around rain pattern to one of just occasionaijlate-summer thunderstorms1, Nielson said, but the change undoubtedly influenced the Anasazis. "Recapture Wash lsa " miniature time capsule of hundreds of years of supporting life," the director said. "However, no written evidence exists on rocks, pottery, skins or parchments to give details of their lifestyle. Rock art found in the area is abstract, geometric and difficult to date to any single time period, let alone interpret what is meant by the glyphs." Nielson reported that when all of the data from Recapture Wash is collected and analyzed, the information will be compared with other projects in the region being conducted by BYU, the Division of State History and the Washington State University-University of Colorado Delores River Project near Cortez, Colo. "By expanding the data base, it will give anthropologists a better basis for making conclusions," he added. "Publishing of the data will be independently funded through ten BYU Department of Anthropology series and in national professional journals." Most of the sites in the project were discovered last year by Nielson and two other archeaologists who were surveying the area for the Utah Division of State History. The BYU crew has been in the area one month and will complete the project by the end of August. Nielson said several volunteers are working on the project, and more are needed. "We could use five or six volunteers each day to help us complete the project," he stated. The general contract for the dam will be let in August and construction will take about two years. When finished, it will impound about 2,000 acre feet of water from Recature Creek for municipal and recreational purposes. An old law still on the books (though no longer enforced, we surmise) makes it illegal for a woman to drive a car in Memphis, Term, unless a man walla or runs in front of her car waving a red warning flag. Richard Talbot of Panguitch looks through a surveyors' transit at an Indian site in southeastern Utah as project supervisor Asa Nielson looks on. Richard Is the son of Mamie Talbot and graduated from BYU with a bachelor's degree In archaeology. He Is now in his second year of the Master of Public Administration program at BYU. |