Remains of immense civilization October 1989, Page 5 found on Great Salt Lake shores ia aap. ——— ee nomenal. There are structures that are sites to the attention of the state. The Tubaduka chapter is composed of amateur, or avocational, archeologists from the Weber County area, and, under Stuart’s direction, has been very active in finding and recording Weber County archeological sites, including those found on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, Jones said. “The avocation archeologists provided almost all of the legwork and a lot of the expertise,” Jones said. “They put forth a tremendous effort.” The state plans to use the preliminary surveys submitted by the three Utah schools to list the areas on the National Register as an archeological district. While the listing will not protect the sites from development, the distinction will mandate scientific study of the locations before any development can take place, Jones said. The state spent approximately $12,000 on the preliminary studies, but Vandalism destroying archeological sites State archeologists are worried that vandalism, already high, will increase with the recent discovery of numerous ancient Indian sites along the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The areas around the Great Salt Lake have been very popular artifact hunting grounds for a long time, and scientists hope it will not become more so, said Kevin Jones, assistant state archeologist with the Utah Division of State History. ““We’re concerned about the effects of vandalism,” Jones said. Weber State, in connection with a state-wide archeological effort, recently began studying remains of a large population of native American Indians on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and state and college archeologists are worried that rising interest by the professionals will spark an increased interest among illegal collectors. The Great Salt Lake has receded the last two years from its historic high, and lowering lake waters have uncovered ancient homes and as many as 54 human burials. “A lot of the burials that have shown up are being destroyed by erosion and by vandalism,” Jones said. Dr. Kenneth W. Russell, director of the archeological technician program at Weber State, said that vandals have been digging up partially exposed human burials and stealing their bones. “The big trouble is that people are going out with their shovels and ATV’s (all-terrain vehicles) and desecrating a number of burials,” Russell said. One vandal stole a human skull, and someone else collected human finger bones for a necklace, he said. “If someone desecrated a pioneer grave people would be pretty dang upset. If I made a necklace out of Brigham Young’s finger bones people would be up in arms. Why does it not bother them to desecrate the grave of a native American Indian?” Russell asked. Jones reported that people had actually followed behind Weber State archeologists uncovering and stealing human bones from sites WSC people had found and reburied. “Antiquities are protected by law, and if human remains are involved it’s a felony to disturb those remains,” Jones said. The human burials are only a few inches below the surface, and in some cases lake wave action has exposed whole skeletons, Russell said. “At one burial we found ATV tracks going back and forth over the burial, crushing the bones,” he said. People are mostly interested in collecting arrow heads, Jones said, but any disturbance of an archeological site is illegal and destroys vital information needed to understand how Indians along the shores of the Great Salt Lake lived, he said. “We definitely want to try to do something about the native American Indian burials that are left open to vandals. We’re trying to work with the local Shoshoni so that these remains can be dealt with properly. That’s a priority,” Jones said. The state hopes to work out a “sensitive policy” with local Indian tribes that would also give scientists a brief opportunity to study the bones for historical data, Jones said. “For the most part we have had good cooperation between archeologists and native Americans. It’s important for us as archeologists to be sensitive to native American Indian feelings,” he said. Sentiments, said Russell, the public at large would do well to reflect. “We need to educate the public about our non-restorable resource. Hopefully through education we can eliminate the casual collector,” Russell said. siaiaaaa Jones noted he plans on seeking additional funds from federal agencies and from the state legislature to continue excavations in the Weber River area. “The sites around the Great Salt Lake are a tremendous resource. We need to do what we can to preserve them before the information they contain is irretrievably lost,” Russell said. ee But with the discovery of immense, long-term populations around Utah’s waterways and lakes the old thinking will be dramatically revised, he said. “These were native American centers, and there was tremendous occupation in Utah,” Russell said. “A lot of wandering was still going on, but with this size of population centers there is a strong possibility that they had sedentary or at least semisedentary civilizations. They may have not wandered, surviving hand to mouth, like we previously thought,” Russell added. Close to 250 different sites are known on the Weber delta of the Great Salt Lake, and archeologists predict that many others have yet to be discovered. “There are very few places where we find as many sites in any one chunk of land. The site density out there is unprecedented,” Russell said. The state’s archeologists are also confident sites exist on the Bear and Jordan rivers, but diking has resulted in heavy silt deposits that have buried any archeological evidence. “We don’t know a lot of what these people did here anciently, but we have a good opportunity to learn about it now,” Jones said. Mark E. Stuart, former president of the Promontory-Tubaduka Chapter of the Statewide Archeological Society, is the one Jones credits with bringing the a Ba 1,000 years old that have collapsed, but are still there,” Russell said. And indications are that even older sites exist beneath the current finds, he added. “They’re out there, but they’re buried,” he said. During the preliminary survey WSC archeologists found ancient dwellings, skulls, a number of arrow and spear points, pottery, and a rare fire-hardened human figurine from the Fremont age, Russell said. Fremont is a cultural classification given Indians who lived in the Utah area from 400 A.D. to about 1300 A.D. The modern day Shoshoni, Paiute, and Ute Indians either displaced the former group or are their descendants, Russell said. The Fremont had tendencies towards agriculture and built permanent to semi-permanent pit houses—structures dug into the ground and built over with sticks and adobe stucco. For years archeologists have had a biased view of Indian life in Utah, Russell said. “We have this vision of people wandering through the hot desert eking out a living, but we have ignored a great many Indians who lived in the wet lands,” he said. ia he shores of the Great Salt Lake once supported one of the largest native American Indian populations in the region, and low lake levels are now uncovering many of their ancient dwellings and burial sites. “This is a major archeological find, with implications not only to Utah, but to the West and to the rest of the United States,” said Dr. Kenneth W. Russell, director of the archeological program at Weber State College. “The native American L.A. and Chicago of the eastern Great Basin were around the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. These were the native American centers,” Russell added. Weber State, the University of Utah and Utah State University participated in a coordinated state-sponsored survey of present and former marshlands around the Jordan and Bear rivers and the Great Salt Lake in an effort to understand an area of Indian habitation that has not been studied to date by archeologists, said Kevin Jones, assistant state archeologist with the Utah Division of State History. “The marsh areas were a really attractive habitat for these ancient people. There were lots of good plant resources and animal! habitat,” Jones said. “This is an important part of our prehistory that we don’t know a lot about because of high lake levels,” he added. The combination of a rising Great Salt Lake two years ago followed by a draught-and-pump caused drop of water levels uncovered many of the sites, Jones said. When the lake reached an historic high of 4211.85 feet in March 1987 the waters killed existing vegetation in marshlands surrounding the lake. As the Great Salt Lake shrank receding waters washed away layers of soil, revealing Indian homes and human burials dated to the Fremont Indian era and to the more modern Shoshoni, he said. The state, in a effort to document as many of the sites as possible, contracted with the three institutions of higher education to conduct preliminary surveys of marshland areas. Utah State University studied the Bear River, the University of Utah looked at the Jordan River and Weber State surveyed present and ancient deltas of the Weber River where it empties into the Great Salt Lake, Jones said. “Most of the sites found are in the Weber area, but there are sites in all the areas,” Jones said. Russell noted that preliminary surveys by students in the WSC program and by local avocationalists showed a density of 40 sites per square mile with as many as 54 known human burials. Many other sites exist that have not been recorded, he noted. “This is a very substantial site, and the date ranges that occur are phe- ita sa alata a accent ail, we carenine tenet: Morass. comets Sates iin seinen Weber State College Comment,