Secrecy of ancient site upsets some Indians

In a possible repeat of the Kennewick Man controversy, some Indian tribes are likely to assert a connection to the string of ancient settlements that have yielded mummified remains in Utah's remote Book Cliffs region.

But establishing a convincing relationship to the Fremont people, who vanished without a trace more than 1,000 years ago, could be as difficult as the Kennewick case has shown. That legal battle involves ownership of a 9,000-year-old skeleton found on the Washington bank of the Columbia River.

The Book Cliffs site in Utah has been dated as old as 4,500 years, and further study could show it was occupied 7,000 or more years ago, said Jerry Spangler, an archaeologist with the College of Eastern Utah, who also reports for the Deseret Morning News. That makes it harder to establish a link with modern tribes.

The settlements were kept secret for more than 50 years by a rancher who turned it over for public ownership and retired. As archaeologists and graduate students scoured Range Creek canyon for the past two summers, federal and state agencies also kept silent.

This past week, some of Utah's Indian leaders complained it was kept too quiet.

"I'm not surprised we weren't consulted or that there's thousands of human remains," said Forrest Cuch, director of Utah's Division of Indian Affairs and a Ute Indian, whose modern-day reservation is the closest of any tribe's to Range Creek.

Patty Timbimboo-Madsen, cultural resources manager for the Northwest Shoshone tribe, characterized the omission as a slight against all American Indians.

"We know our ancestors are out there somewhere. When you find them, out of respect, let the native people go in and do ceremonies because you have disturbed something that we think is sacred," she said.

The state and federal governments, and a trust that arranged the sale, were duty-bound to report human remains and sacred objects on the ancestral lands of the Northern Utes, said Melvin Brewster, historic preservation director for the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes.

"They need to bring in the traditional spiritual leaders," he said. "It looks like all this noncompliance went on."

Waldo Wilcox, the rancher who protected the Range Creek site, first disclosed the recovery of mummified remains to the Associated Press last week. But when archaeologists conducted a tour this past week, they kept reporters from viewing burial mounds or human remains.

State archaeologist Kevin Jones said that when researchers stumbled across human remains, they were leaving them in place covered with dirt. Because of secrecy, it's not clear how many skeletons have been found or removed from the site.