Display captures Range Creek secrets

"Sometime around 1300, there was a drought," Knoll said. When the weather became too dry to grow corn, the Anasazi and Fremont people left the region.

The Anasazi spread into neighboring areas, with some going to the present-day Pueblo region and others to the Rio Grande. "Where the Fremont went we don't really know," she said.

Some artifacts from northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado show Fremont people hung onto their lifestyles into the late 1400s. At Range Creek, sites that have been dated so far are from the 1000s and 1100s, but that could change as research continues.

Becky Menlove, director of exhibits at the museum, said the goal of the exhibit is to "create an impression of what it's like to be in Range Creek." This is reinforced by a towering artificial cliff with a recreated granary toward the top.

The exhibit features photos and a video of historic ranching and a movie interviewing members of three tribes about archaeology in general and Range Creek. It has a "lab" representing the one at the site.

"We're only doing surface collection, there's no excavation," Menlove said of Range Creek. Some of those objects are on display, along with material from other Fremont sites.

They include stone and shell beads, awls used to drill, arrowheads, pieces of woven fiber baskets, a wooden shovel that may have been used in planting, grinding stones, a large stone blade and a bundle of thin straight sticks with bindings that their discoverers once called "mystery sticks."

Joel Janetski, archaeologist at Brigham Young University, Provo, solved the mystery. He identified the sticks as snares for catching small birds.

Another display uses a mounted magnifying glass to help viewers examine what is called a "coffee bean applique" design on a potsherd.

Menlove noted that archaeologist Jerry Spangler, a former Deseret Morning News reporter, wrote the display's introduction. "He's involved in the research at Range Creek, and he's a great writer," she said.

Kathy Kankainen, collections manager at the museum, said the display is "a fabulous representation of Range Creek Canyon and what we know about it so far." As more information comes in, the exhibit will be updated, she said.

Annie Sager, a graduate student in anthropology, was helping to erect a display and also keeping track of labels on artifacts.

When the exhibit comes down, she said, "every artifact can be used for further research." The documentation will help to link the artifact to the field work.

"We want to make sure it has proper tracking numbers."

What is Range Creek like?

"Oh, it's beautiful," Sager said. "The isolation is really profound."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com