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Show Uintah Basin Furnishes Best Evidence Of Ancient Cultures By Mildred Dillman A story book of enchantment is the Uintah Basin. Its pages scarcely legible can be interpreted interpre-ted only with painstaking care, and by uncovering layers of earth to expose its hidden secrets. sec-rets. To the geologist, is exposed the entire geological column of the age of rock formation and life development. To the paleontologist, paleon-tologist, there is availible fossil fos-sil remains unexcelled in any other known field. Collectors' have assembled more than fivei hundred separate varieties within with-in a period of three days. Successive civilizations have dwelled over the entire area of the Basin and in certain periods their population has equalled or been greater than our present number. It is thrilling to walk over an old village and find evidences that as many as four different civilizations have lived there. INTO this Basin came the oldest civilization yet found in North America. Its artifacts are the same as the Folsom Man that lived in Folsom, New Mexico Mex-ico and in Lindenmeier, Colorado. Colo-rado. Dr. F. H. H. Roberts, of the Smithsonian Institue says the Folsom Man is between ten thousand and twenty thousand years old. In our own Pleasant Valley, the arrows and stone implements that he used can be found in several places. Some of the oldest and finest pictographs are found that have been carefully pecked into the rocks. It is from these that we learn much about the different dif-ferent peoples that have lived here. In many places each civilization civili-zation has added its story over a previous one. Some, of the most interesting are found just a mile or so south of Roosevelt, and in the ledges north of Ioka. In fact there is hardly a place in the Basin that some evidences eviden-ces cannot be unearthed revealing reveal-ing former civilizations. The Basket Makers, who lived in the numerous deep caves, left to us many challenging artifacts ar-tifacts to prove that they f once lived here. On the ledges are their tall square figures, care- fully carved. Bundles of snares, baskets, and storage places have been collected and observed by-many by-many residents living here. Following the Basket Makers, came the civilization of the Pueblos, Pu-eblos, These people were here in great numbers. They were an ingenious people, making pottery, pot-tery, farming the fertile mesas and river bottoms. They even made canals that rival in grade those built by our present engineers. engi-neers. One of these canals is readily tracable from the hill at the W. K. Dye ranch to the Uintah river. Mr. Harmston declared de-clared this canal to have been constructed on a grade rivaling those that arc now established by irrigation engineers. C. A. Brown, of Montwell, has identified a unique practice in agriculture. Bordering small ponds or reservoirs, corn was planted where it could be readily supplied with water impounded in ithe reservoir. He has collected col-lected many interesting artifacts arti-facts and. spent many enjoyable hours reconstructing the habits and culture of these old Pueblos. There lived in Nine Mile about the same time as the Pueblos, people that came from Mexico who were Aztec in their culture. It has only been very recently that Dr. Scott and Dr. Noress from Peabody, Harvard University, Univer-sity, identified them. These, people brought with them many of their ancient religious practices prac-tices and left their artifacts in their crude homes on the ledges in Nine Mile. Lee Snyder and his wife, Nora, have found and preserved some of these artifacts arti-facts that are challenging archaeologists. archae-ologists. FROM our own Utes, who came many years ago, and whose clcccndants are still here, we can learn much of the Basin's early culture, which is indeed more complex than the average citizen of today recognizes. , Briefly, some of the most interesting in-teresting are the numerous ani-j mal traps that were made for the mountain sheep around Han-na; Han-na; the deer traps vet to be seen near Fort Duchesne; the old trails that were made and which later were followed by the traders, tra-ders, trappers and explorers. There are also fine woven baskets, bas-kets, bead work, the art of dyeing and the Use of earth colors. During World War II, the government sent specialists to the Ute tribe to learn their fine method of drying and preserving pre-serving meat and native berries, There is within our Basin enough material already within reach for many hundreds of books. The Basin is rich in the lore of the early trapper, trader, exp orer and pioneer. It is one of the most interesting places" for the field of scientific study in the world. Whether you are interested in just collecting arrow ar-row heads, or in gathering stone grinders, and metals, or interested interes-ted in historical events, in the Indians, in geology, or even now in oil. there is no place TTinVS 0rl-d Vlat surpasses the Uintah Basin in its challenging |