Book

Cowboys & cave dwellers: basketmaker archaeology in Utah's Grand Gulch

School of American Research Press ; Distributed by the University of Washington Press • Santa Fe, N.M. • Published In 1997 • Pages:

By: Blackburn, Fred M., Williamson, Ray A..

Abstract

This book mixes the story of the exploration of Grand Gulch, Utah in the 1890s by cowboy archaeologists Richard Wetherill, his brothers, and other interested antiquarians with the more recent explorations in the late 1980s to early 1990s by avocational archaeologists of the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project. Richard Wetherill had excavated in the caves and rockshelters of Grand Gulch for prehistoric artifacts. Through his excavations Richard Wetherill realized there had been two groups of people living in these canyons and he called them 'Basket Makers.' The Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project's goal was to do reverse archaeology; to locate the artifacts dug up in the 1890s, photograph them, and provenience them (find out exactly which cave or rock shelter they had been excavated from). Grand Gulch is located in an area known as canyon country, where each canyon has canyons of its own, many rockshelters, shallow alcoves, and a few caves, so it was not an easy task to locate the locations of these early excavations. Some of the artifacts were eventually located at Chicago's Field Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. One chapter of this book is an overview of Basketmaker culture.

HRAF PubDate

2010

Region

North America

Sub Region

Southwest and Basin

Document Type

Book

Evaluation

Creator Type

Unknown

Document Rating

4: Excellent Secondary Data

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

Sarah Berry; 2009

Field Date

1981, 1986-1990, 1992-1994

Coverage Date

3500-1250 BP (1500 BC-AD 750)

Coverage Place

Colorado Plateau; Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah; United States

Notes

Fred M. Blackburn & Ray A. Williamson

Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-181) and index

LCCN

96029572

LCSH

Basket-Maker Indians--Antiquities

Indians of North America--Utah--Antiquities

Grand Gulch (San Juan County, Utah)--Antiquities