[00:00.00]Professor: OK, Paul asked if I could talk a little bit about the project that I have been working on, on and off for the last few years. And yes, I'd love to. [00:13.60]We are working in a remote part of the state of Utah in a place called Range Creek Canyon. [00:18.90]Around a thousand years ago, Range Creek Canyon was the site of a large native American community. [00:25.13]A group known today is the Fremont people, spelled F R E M O N T. [00:30.28]The number of archaeological sites and the state of preservation of the site is amazing. [00:38.20]In the first year, we worked there in one week, we recorded 77 undisturbed sites, that's phenomenal. [00:47.98]I've worked in archaeology pretty much all my adult life. [00:52.02]And I've only seen half a dozen sites that I knew were absolutely undisturbed, but in Range Creek Canyon, there are hundreds.
[01:01.10]Student: Like what kind of stuff that you’ve found there?
[01:04.41]Professor: Oh, houses, granaries, rock art, digging stick, ropes, stone blades, arrows and arrow heads, lots of pottery. [01:15.30]What looks like personal jewelry, and we have only surveyed maybe 5-10% of the area. It's mind-boggling.
[01:23.53]Student: Are these sites that we could visit, if we were out in the area?.
[01:26.66]Professor: Actually, it is now possible for the public to visit Range Creek, and that's well, I mean you’ve all learned a great deal about archaeology and are pretty serious about it. [01:38.87]But the general public, let's just say a lot of us in the field, aren’t so crazy about the idea.
[01:46.48]Student: I can imagine, so this is pretty recent thing？
[01:49.74]Professor: Yes, because the location is so remote, the sites weren’t discovered until the 1940s, then after they were discovered, the family that owned the land, kept very strict control over the sites, and who could visit them, and what they could do there and so on, but then 2002, the family sold that land to the government, and so now the public has much greater access to it.
[02:14.12]Student: Maybe too much access.
[02:15.65]Professor: Right and you know there are lots of sites you have to excavate really quickly because some construction companies anxious to get in there with heavy equipment, but that's not the case with Range Creek. [02:28.73]If I had my way, we wouldn't touch most of those sites till least 20 or 30 years from now. [02:34.53]When I expect we will have technologies we can’t even imagine yet. [02:38.04]It won't matter though, what high-tech methods we might develop if the government can't keep the sites protected, so that's a major concern right now.
[02:47.00]Student: So are there like any great mysteries there, you know, like with the Mayans, central America.
[02:54.47]Professor: Yes, there are. For instance, the Fremont built some of their houses in really inconvenient places, like on rock pinnacles or on the edges of cliffs, really dangerous places to live. [03:08.55]Not a great place to raise children. [03:11.02]Plus you're thousand feet above your water and your fields and, and, and they put their granaries, where they stored their corn in virtually inaccessible places, high on the sides of canyon walls. [03:22.94]You could imagine the amount of work that it took to construct them. [03:26.48]All the stone, all the mud there made of, had to be carried up to those high locations to build them. And corn was the most important crop.
[03:35.64]Student: Maybe they were afraid some other group was going to attack them, or maybe it could’ve something to do with their religion. [03:42.51]You know, like feeling, they were close to their gods up there.
[03:45.86]Professor: Well, those are actually two current theories and I think probably was defense that was their top priority. [03:53.08]If that’s true, then the question really is, who or what, was it that made them feel so insecure. [04:00.22]Then, there is another mystery, around thirteen hundred AD, there is a major change. [04:07.14]For some reason they stopped building substantial structures. They stopped making fine pottery. [04:12.58]There was a change in their basket making and it looks like a pretty firm break. [04:18.37]So, the other people came in and forced the Fremont out or did farming become difficult, so people returned to hunting and gathering or...
[04:27.07]Student: Wasn’t thirteen hundred AD, like, didn’t something mysterious happen to other native American peoples that time too.
[04:34.58]Professor: Ah, so you’re really into the mysteries, yes, thirteen hundred AD, it's one of the biggest questions in American archaeology, you had widespread sudden change, you had societies collapsing, and that's one reason, the Range Creek sites were so promising, we might finally be able to figure out what happened, gain some insight into a number of native American societies.
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