Rancher unveils Indian site kept secret for years

[JayS]

June 24, 2004, 3:18PM
Rancher unveils Indian site kept secret for years
Archaeologists says it's one of the West's most spectacular
By PAUL FOY
Associated Press Writer
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2645481




SALT LAKE CITY -- For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient Indian settlements so remarkably well-preserved that arrowheads and beads are still lying out in the open.

Archaeologists are calling it one of the most spectacular finds in the West.

Hidden deep inside Utah's nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles from Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles and include hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, stone houses built halfway underground, rock shelters, and the mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.

The site was occupied for at least 3,000 years until it abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished.

What sets this ancient site apart from other, better-known ones in Utah, Arizona or Colorado is that it has been left virtually untouched by looters, with the ground still littered with arrowheads, arrow shafts, beads and pottery shards in places.

"It was just like walking into a different world," said Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones, who was overcome on his first visit in 2002.

Wilcox, 74, said: "It's like being the first white man in there, the way I kept it. There's no place like it left."

*SNIP*

[DebJ]

1. cool! Wonder if Ancient American will publish pictures/article

[jayavarman]

2. Wow, That's a really cool story

I wish there were pictures

[JayS]

6. I'll keep a watch out for pictures and post them when they are online.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. How much you wanna bet the GOP will use this as an example

of how private ranchers have better control over these things than the government?

[NMDemDist2]

4. ooooo that is so way cool! n/t

[Taverner]

5. Can't wait to see the National Geographic on this

I'm sure they will feature it soon....