The Fremont People of Range Creek Canyon, Utah.
by E. Sue Turner   email

June 19, 1999, I accompanied Pierce, John, and Tom on a survey and data-gathering trip to Range Creek Canyon, Utah. Our flight from ... more

IMG0002.jpg June 19, 1999, our flight from Love Field, Dallas, to Price Utah was aboard a Merlin Fairchild turboprop plane.

IMG0003.jpg Stepping off the airplane in Price, Utah It was a wonderful ride!

IMG0001.jpg Waldo Wilcox, far left, met my three friends and I at the Price, airfield.

IMG0005.jpg We set off in one-ton, four-wheel drive Ford trucks for the Wilcox ranch in Range Creek Canyon with Waldo Wilcox and his son.

IMG0006.jpg The last 40 miles of the 63 mile trip took us through Horse Canyon and Little Creek Canyon on a winding one-lane dirt road.

IMG0008.jpg The winding road took us over a pass at an elevation of 9,000 feet, and down to the ranch in Range Creek Canyon at an elevation of 5,000 feet. The trip was slow and rough and in wet or snowy weather, it can be extremely hazardous.

IMG0010.jpg We are at the 9,000 foot summit (left to right, John, Sue, Pierce and Waldo).

IMG0012.jpg We stopped to view the first petroglyph.

IMG0025.jpg Wilcox's grandfather was born in Wyoming and moved to a plot of land east of the Green River in 1883. When the government enlarged the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in 1941, the family moved to Range Creek Canyon. In 1951, Wilcox expanded the family holdings to 4200 acres, which include 20 miles of the 50-mile Range Creek Canyon.

IMG0011.jpg The ranch is surrounded by 100,000 acres of BLM wilderness land.

IMG0076.jpg First home of Waldo Wilcox and his wife Julie. They raised four children here.

IMG0069.jpg The Wilcox ranch house and compound in in Range Creek Canyon

snap04.jpg The winding road down into the canyon.

IMG0075.jpg The land in the canyon is irrigated by five wells. Springs and trails are found on the faults and when Wilcox first drilled for a well, he hit water at five feet. He dug the well to 50 feet and reinforced the walls to prevent a cave in. His "water wheel" is shown here.

snap02.jpg Wilcox runs about 245 head of cattle on the land. The cattle graze in the canyon for part of the year and after calving and branding, they are driven up the narrow dirt road to the grazing land that the family owns above the pass. Many lose their way or are lost in falls off the cliff, -- it takes skill, risk and hard work to make the drive each year.

IMG0032.jpg Waldo Wilcox at one of the many stream crossings. The natural isolation of Range Creek Canyon has served to protect much of the archaeological evidence of the ancient ones, known as the Fremont people, who once inhabited this canyon. When these peoples appeared in eastern Utah is a moot point, but I doubt that Fremont occupation in this area was ever too intensive -- perhaps owing to the high elevation of the region and the consequent short growing season.

IMG0071.jpg There is evidence of indigenous development in the area since Archaic times, but about 500 A.D.. the old hunting and gathering bands gave way to a fairly large and relatively sedentary population in areas where resources were readily available. Where resources were scarce, the Fremont people lived in small, highly mobile, kin-based groups, exploiting the resources available. Some were settled farmers growing crops of corn squash and beans and others were nomadic desert hunters and gatherers living on pinon nuts, bulrush seeds and mountain sheep.

IMG0054.jpg The most distinctive feature of the Fremont is their unique rock art style, typlified by horned, trapezoidal-bodied anthropomorphs, found everywhere the Fremont lived. Their feet point out to either side and the fingers are splayed.

IMG0055.jpg Headgear of feathers and deerskin occur in the archaeological record and pendants of sandstone, turquoise, bone tooth and shell.

IMG0056.jpg Freemont figure at Range Creek Canyon Virtual Pictograph - very close up

IMG0057.jpg Fremont petroglyph at Range Creek Canyon

IMG0101.jpg Mountain sheep were very important.

IMG0073.jpg Cabin in Range Creek Canyon where Clarence Pilling lived for a short time. Pilling discovered the Pilling figurines, one of the best examples we have of Fremont figurines, in 1950 in a small side canyon of Range Creek Canyon. The figurines are now at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price Utah.

IMG0022.jpg This curious pictograph is similar to the arched promontory and has an anthropomorph in the middle and is located on a high canyon wall with a view of the arch, but of course we don't know what the big "circle" is -- the Wilcoxes dubbed it "the television screen."

IMG0024.jpg Another view of the "television screen" pictograph. The Fremont did do some painting of shields. This was very large for a shield.

IMG0078.jpg Another rockshelter where two eroding burials are evident, was closely guarded by the Wilcox family.

IMG0079.jpg Skull eroding in rockshelter.

IMG0087.jpg The Wilcox family has surface-collected numerous artifacts over the past 60 years, which are unique artifacts of the Fremont culture. The thin-walled gray pottery ahown here is probably the most distinguishing non-perishable feature, which ties these people together.

IMG0088.jpg Plain gray wide-mouthed jars and narrow-necked jugs with strap handles like this basalt-tempered Sevier gray pot shown here are common utilitarian forms at Fremont sites.

IMG0090.jpg Five different pottery types have been defined on the basis of differences in temper, but it appears that many local wares were also produced. The early potters used a coil and scrape technique in their construction with limestone as a temper. Variations in temper and the granular rock or sand added to wet clay to insure even drying and to prevent cracking are what distinguish Fremont pottery from other types.

IMG0089.jpg The broken pot here and shards of many of the varieties of Fremont pottery are found in the Wilcox collection.

IMG0091.jpg Examples of Fremont pottery include Ivie Creek black-on-white and Snake Valley and Sevier black on gray varieties with geometric design elements similar to those used by Anasazi and Southwestern groups.

IMG0094.jpg The fingernail impresssions along the rim of the neck are a common decorative technique found in late Prehistoric pottery. Madsen (1989:48) suggests this is one of the few bits of material evidence supporting a connection between the Fremont and later peoples of the area. Note the artifact on the pot -- the chert looked very much like the alibate chert of the Panhandle of Texas.

IMG0074.jpg Characteristic Fremont metate and mano with small secondary grinding surface (thought by some to have been used in conjunction with stone balls found at sites -- and thought by others to show a connection to the Mogollon who have similar metates). These are commonly found in the canyon in association with the remains of pithouses.

IMG0045.jpg An example of the many remains of collapsed pithouses found throughout the canyon near marsh and pond and springs and on terraces up the canyon walls.

IMG0049.jpg Collapsed pithouse, which probably had above ground rock, pole and mud, or brush-hut breaks. Winters in the Great Basin can be long and cold. In the 60 years that Wilcox lived in the canyon, the coldest winter reached 30 below zero.

IMG0086.jpg Small stick and mud-walled granaries are common in crevices high in the walls of the canyon -- they were probably used to cache seed corn and other resources during periods when valley sites were abandoned. Tiny corn cobs and beans were also found in the collection.

IMG0083.jpg Fremont moccasins are another unique trait. They are very different from the woven sandles of the Anasazi. Some are constructed from the hock of a bison, which was accomplished by girding the leg at two points and then removing the hide as a skin tube. Or, from hide taken in pieces off the forelegs of a deer or mountain sheep like the one shown here.

IMG0084.jpg The moccasin shown here has a tuff of hair on it.

IMG0085.jpg Shown here is a fragment of matting made from cattail or bulrush, which may have been used as a sleeping mat, and a tiny example of their classic one rod and bundle basketry --another unique construction style, which was markedly different from the Anasazi or the later Ute, Paiute and Shoshone.

IMG0092.jpg Other artifacts found in the Wilcox collection include a wide array of bone needles, stone awls, bone and shell beads, projectile points, knives, scrapers and other stone tools from an interesting variety of cherts,-- obsidian, pink agate and what resembled Llano Estacado alibate.

snap07.jpg Stone artifacts from Range Creek Canyon

snap08.jpg Stone artifacts from Range Creek Canyon.

snap09.jpg Elongated corner-notched and small side-notched points are characteristic but too few, and too varied and too limited in distribution to make them a distinguishing trait.

IMG0080.jpg This pictograph is a little different and looks more like Barrier Canyon style (found in western tributaries of the Green River in eastern and central Utah). The lack of arms, the narrow body, the straight short legs and there seems to be an arc of white dots or something painted on top of this figure (some Barrier Canyon shamanic figures wear a crown of white dots).

IMG0015.jpg Calendrical system? -- this is always a guess. I was not there long enough to see if these markiings interact with sunlight and shadow in any significant way.

IMG0016.jpg Heizer and Hester suggest that similar rock art drawings might represent diversion fences for game drives, -- but their examples had mountain sheep and shaman and bowmen.

IMG0017.jpg A tall, fascinating pictograph high in the canyon wall in a rock overhang.

IMG0018.jpg Pictograph in rock overhang high in the canyon wall

IMG0019.jpg pictograph in rock overhang

IMG0013.jpg petroglyph

IMG0038.jpg Petroglyphs on Range Creek Canyon walls

IMG0068.jpg Petroglyphs

IMG0020.jpg Pictographs randomly scattered on rock surface

IMG0023.jpg Interesting assortment of pictographs

IMG0021.jpg Pictographs

IMG0103.jpg Mountain sheep petroglyph at Range Creek Canyon

IMG0028.jpg pictograph

IMG0039.jpg Petroglyphs

IMG0041.jpg Petroglyphs

IMG0042.jpg Wall of petroglyphs

IMG0058.jpg Petroglyphs

IMG0059.jpg Petroglyph footprint

IMG0062.jpg Petroglyph handprints or bear paw print

IMG0064.jpg The walls of the canyon are covered with petroglyphs and pictographs

IMG0027.jpg Petroglyph -- calendrical?

IMG0037-2.jpg Concentric circle petroglyph

IMG0065.jpg Several figures.

IMG0102.jpg At least six sheep, and other figures.

Img0036.jpg Petroglyph

IMG0029.jpg Incised figure, and hand

IMG0066.jpg Curvilinear meander and snakes.

IMG0070.jpg Collapsed pit house and rock art found in these boulders.

IMG0035.jpg star figure

IMG0053.jpg Stick and mud granary in rocks high on canyon wall

IMG0067.jpg Sun disk? petroglyph

IMG0081.jpg After 1250 A.D., the Fremont began to disappear in the uneven fashion they appeared and by 1350 A.D., practically all of the Fremont population had abandoned the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau provinces. Climatic conditions favorable to farming seem to have changed about this time forcing groups to rely more on wild food resources. Migration into the area of Ute, Paiute and Shoshone populations may have displaced them. Different art styles suggest that they were pushed out or died out. The total disappearance of Fremont patterns over its entire geographic range has not been determined.