In the serene morning air, our voices echo from the red cliffs that rise over one thousand feet above us. All along the rim curiously shaped rock formations seem to lean over, as though watching us, or perhaps listening to our conversation. It’s strangely quiet today. The only sounds are the river tumbling over rocks and the whispers of the breeze. This ancient and stunningly beautiful landscape is Fremont country—and the Fremont cultural complex is one of the most enigmatic of all North American prehistoric cultures.
The first sites were discovered in the 1920s along the Fremont River in southcentral Utah, hence the name “Fremont.” But from approximately AD 100 to 1600, Fremont groups lived in the eastern Great Basin and across the western Colorado Plateau. Sometimes they were nomadic, routinely moving their camps, living out in the open or in rock-shelters or caves, while they hunted game and collected wild plants. At other times they were settled farmers with pithouse villages. Pithouses are partially subterranean structures, roofed with logs and thatch and covered with dirt. The typical pithouse was conical or like a flat-topped pyramid, and stood about six feet tall and twelve feet across. A hole in the roof allowed the inhabitants to climb in and out via a ladder, and also allowed the smoke from fires inside the house to escape. Fremont farmers grew corn, beans, squash, and other domesticates, along any trickle of water that would support their fields. It appears that during periods of environmental stress Fremont farmers abandoned their villages and crops and became hunter-gatherers. They probably spoke a variety of languages and encompassed, and intermarried with, many different ethnic groups. That’s part of what makes it so difficult for archaeologists to define who and what they were. One thing is certain: The Fremont were masters of adaptation.
As we walk along the deer trail at the base of the canyon wall, we see a large leaf-shaped stone artifact. It’s a finely knapped blade that was likely hafted to a wooden handle and used as a knife to cut up the ancestors of the very deer whose trail we tread upon this morning. Or maybe the Fremont used the knife to skin a bighorn sheep. To our right, rock carvings of bighorn sheep leap across the red sandstone cliff, followed by hunters with bows and arrows. Above them stand huge human-like figures wearing headdresses. The carved figure on the far left of the petroglyph panel has a foot missing, lost in a crack … as though she just stepped out of the stone, or perhaps just emerged from the dark underworlds. Truly, the rock art of the Fremont, their petroglyphs and pictographs—rock carvings and paintings—are breathtaking.
As we continue along the trail, we see a quartz tool the size of a chicken egg. In the Coso Range in California, archaeologists have found bits of quartz ground into the petroglyphs, as though the artists used such objects as carving tools. Is that what this is? The quartz tool is silent, its true purpose a mystery.
But we do know from modern ethnographic studies that similar artifacts in the hands of the magically endowed, a shaman, for example, could reputedly bring life to cold stone images such as these.
Rounding a bend in the trail, we encounter more figures. Sometimes their headdresses appear to be bison horns, other times they resemble feathers or insect antennae. All the figures here have trapezoidal bodies with wide shoulders and wear necklaces, breastplates, and ear ornaments. They are not static. The positions of their arms and legs (when they have legs) convey motion. Stand and look up at them long enough, and they appear to move, dancing upon the rock with changes of sunlight or drifting cloud shadows. Gusts of wind give them soft voices, whispering across time.
Archaeologists identify the Fremont from the unique styles of their hock moccasins constructed from the lower leg of a deer, bison, or bighorn sheep, gray-coil pottery, distinctive clay figurines, one-rod-and-bundle basketry, and their amazing artwork. Over a period of 1,500 years, the Fremont moved across a vast territory that included Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
What happened to them? It probably wasn’t one thing, but many: repeated and extended droughts, population pressures, invasion, warfare. Some of the most spectacular Fremont rock art panels, like those at McConkie Ranch, west of Vernal, Utah, show figures wielding weapons and shields, carrying severed heads. Tears run down the faces. Bloodred pigment streaks from neck arteries. Some archaeologists suggest that these are not scenes of actual violence. The severed heads could be sacred masks and the weapons and shields some sort of ritual paraphernalia. The images might simply represent mythological stories. Maybe. In any case, the art is exquisitely detailed. And bone-chilling.
Archaeologists will likely never fully understand who the Fremont were or how they thought, but surely they were as susceptible to anger and despair as we are. They must also have felt love and desperation, especially when feeding their children became difficult as the climate changed.
Finding the human beings beneath the ancient detritus of their lives is the most difficult task of an archaeologist.
People of the Canyons is our attempt. We hope you enjoy it.
Sincerely,
Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear