Cody Redmon - Photoblog

From roughly 400-1,350 A.D. the Fremont culture populated regions throughout Utah, growing corn and other crops, hunting game, establishing mysteries for later generations to unravel. Though not as famous for architecture as their Anasazi neighbors, they did leave behind a scattered trove of granaries, pit houses and other minor stone structures.  Rock art seems to have played a big part in their culture, with petroglyphs and pictographs lasting to serve as their voice.  Despite all that is known about these ancient people, many more questions have remained unanswered.  A ‘recent’ discovery, however, might change that - Range Creek (video), a particularly unique location, was acquired by the State of Utah in 2001.  It is thought to be the largest and most pristinely preserved concentration of Fremont sites in the southwest, with an estimated 6,000+ in one 15-mile canyon. The following images are not from Range Creek, but are indicative of the culture.

**UPDATE: More videos links…
Time Team America, PBS - Range Creek Episode
Time Team America, PBS - Range Creek page - video snippets and background info
Scientific American Frontiers - The Secret Canyon

After first hiking up the wrong canyon, we finally located the above granary just off of the Burr Trail in what is called ‘The Gulch’.  A few pictures and some mediocre directions from Flickr were all that I had to go on, but it was definitely worth it.  Just 50 yards away were a couple of stash boxes the Fremont had dug down into the sandstone, one full of dirt, the second exposed and intact.

Same granary as previous image, just closer.  Finger markings were still very evident in the clay used to mortar the stones together, sealing out rodents and weather.  Interestingly, when I tried to take an image of what was inside, the sensor on my camera started acting up and hasn’t been the same since.  Time for a new camera, I do believe…

This structure was located high above the canyon floor near Coyote Natural Bridge, south of Escalante, UT.  Portions of the structure had fallen down the steep face it’s perched on, but the remaining walls were about four feet tall and seemed quite stable.   A sign was posted saying ‘Stay Out!’, but it was located at the exit rather than where you enter.  Ersh…

A section of corn, likely 600+ years old, rests upon a piece of mortar that has fallen from the wall.  Fremont corn was much smaller than what we buy commercially today, as this piece was no more 2cm in diameter. The mortar was very interesting as well; at first I thought the grooves were similar to those used by later Native American tribes to straighten arrow shafts.  However, almost all of the mortar that had fallen from the walls looked like this.  Some had sticks forced through the clay when still wet – maybe for stability, or ventilation.  The grooves on this piece have clearly been manipulated by fingers, I’m just not sure what for. Anyone?

An outside view of the stone structure near Coyote Natural Bridge.  The approach was difficult in that you had to haul yourself up over a chest-high lip, slick from a natural seep and with no shortage of Poison-oak and thistle all around (not visible here).