Anthropology & Archaeology

Ivie Black on White Gray ware Sherd (FS6) 42EM4312

Most of the pottery found within the Range Creek Canyon is a plain gray in color, hence the name gray ware. Most gray ware would be used for things like cooking and other mundane tasks. Because this fragment is decorated in a style called Ivie Black on White, researchers infer that this was not used for daily tasks. While scientists from the Natural History Museum of Utah and Brigham Young University don’t know exactly what this pot was used for, it seems unlikely that the Fremont would decorate the inside of this bowl if they planned on using it for cooking or other mundane tasks. There is so much that modern people do not know about the Fremont, and inferences like this are usually the best we can do in knowing how they lived their lives. This item was found on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

Bone Awl (FS 373.1) 42EM19

Some of the most important archaeological information comes from finds found in ancient trash heaps known as middens. This bone awl, found on land owned by the School and Institutional Trust Land Administration, came from one of these Fremont middens. Awls were multi-use tools the Fremont used for sewing, punching holes in leather, and manipulating other organic materials. These tools not only tell us a bit about the ways that the Fremont worked in their daily lives, but also what kinds of animals they were eating. Awls are made from the long bones of whatever animal was being eaten. While we can learn a lot from excavating middens, modern scientists tend to err on leaving sites unearthed. Excavating sites is destructive, and once you dig something up you can’t replace it. 

Ceramic Beads (FS 381.33-381.34) F2EM19

These ceramic beads found on land owned by the School and Institutional Trust Land Administration are the only ones of their kind recorded in Range Creek Canyon so far. Most beads found in middens come from local goods like shale, but the material used to make these ceramics is not found in or near the canyon. We don’t have the specifics about their origins. The wonderful thing about museum collections is that more research can always be done on even the smallest of objects. Even if we do not know much about an object currently, an intrepid intern, researcher, or visiting expert in the future can shine more light on its origins as better tools and more research become available.

Raw Turquoise Chunk (Uncategorized) F2EM19

This raw chunk of turquoise is the largest piece of the mineral found in Range Creek Canyon and was found on land owned by the School and Institutional Trust Land Administration. Turquoise is not a naturally occurring mineral in the area, meaning this is another object imported into the canyon hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The other two pieces of turquoise in the Natural History Museum of Utah’s collections are small and highly polished, but this one is unchanged by humans. Since it is large enough to take a sample, our researchers plan on sourcing where it came from. This means that we will track down the area it came from, using it to further understand the historical context of human movement and how different groups of people interacted with each other centuries ago.