DIGGING DEEP

From a geological perspective, the Grand Canyon is the world’s biggest treasure chest. The 20-mile-wide, 5,000-foot-deep chasm cut by the Colorado River exposes the Earth’s history going back millions of years. But what many people who gaze upon this spectacle of rock and color don’t realize is that the Grand Canyon is also a rich repository of human history, with evidence of occupation dating to 12,000 B.C. Yet, unlike the visible rock strata, this long-buried archaeological archive had been mostly a mystery until a recent excavation project literally unearthed answers to questions about the lives of the Grand Canyon’s ancient inhabitants.

“Who lived in the Grand Canyon in the past? When did they live there? How did they make a living? What were their houses like? Did they even have houses?” asks Museum of Northern Arizona principal archaeologist Ted Neff, summing up some of the driving questions behind the excavation project, which was conducted by the Flagstaff-based museum, in cooperation with Grand Canyon National Park, between 2007 and 2009. In all, nine sites located along or just above the Colorado River in the park were excavated over a period of 136 gritty days in the field. It was the first major excavation in the Grand Canyon in nearly 40 years, and it was funded entirely through revenues from park entrance fees.
 

Although the national park has a “preservation in place” policy that mandates leaving resources like archaeological artifacts undisturbed, erosion along the Colorado River in the Canyon caused by the Glen Canyon Dam upstream was threatening to destroy the ancient sites. Buried for centuries beneath heavy sediment deposits and hidden from view, the archaeological resources along the river had become dangerously exposed since the dam was completed in 1963.

“We had been monitoring sites along the river for 15 to 20 years and erosion was increasing,” says Lisa Leap, who was the lead archaeologist for Grand Canyon National Park on the project. “The nine sites we identified for excavation were the places most threatened, and we were at risk of losing the cultural information that was there. Artifacts were washing down the river.”

Some of the locations that were excavated are familiar stops for Grand Canyon river runners, including Palisades Creek, Furnace Flats and Unkar Delta. The excavation crew traveled by raft to reach the sites and camped along the river for up to 10 days at a time. In order to avoid damaging 1,000-year-old masonry walls and brittle artifacts, they did all their digging and sifting work by hand with trowels, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows and screens. Artifacts recovered from the sites include stone tools, pottery, jewelry, seeds, ash from hearths, and even a buffalo bone (probably traded from elsewhere). Numerous dwelling and adjacent trash midden sites were excavated, and one kiva, probably used for ceremonial purposes, was discovered.
 

While the project produced evidence of human habitation in the Grand Canyon ranging from Paleo-Indian nomadic hunter-gatherers up to historic Southwest Native cultures, most of the findings were from a specific 250-year period between A.D. 1000 and 1250, when Ancestral Puebloan people lived and farmed along the Colorado River.

“It looked like people were living permanently in the river corridor during that time,” Neff says. “The dwelling sites were hamlets up in the hills above the flood line that probably consisted of two to three extended families at one site.”

Charred remains in the excavated hearths included proof that the ancient farmers were growing not only squash and corn, but also cotton.

“We assume cotton was a big part of their life,” Neff says. “They likely made textiles with cotton using looms, but they also probably ate the seeds and used it for oil. They could grow this thirsty crop while their neighbors in drier locations couldn’t, so they probably used cotton as a primary trade item.”
 

 
In addition to the surprisingly abundant evidence of cotton, another important discovery for the archaeologists was the wide variety of pottery designs.

“The Grand Canyon is on the boundary of three distinct Ancestral Puebloan groups,” Neff explains. “The different types of pottery we found show multiple cultural influences in one location.”

A critical part of the excavation involved 11 Southwest Native tribes who have ties to the Grand Canyon. Park archaeologists consulted with tribal representatives before the dig took place, and then sought advice on the interpretation of artifacts and other information from the sites. Neff says members of the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Paiute and Hualapai tribes visited the excavation or attended workshops hosted by the museum and park staff where they examined the findings from the project and shared cultural stories. When the excavation of a specific site was completed, the area was back-filled with dirt and revegetated to return the area to its natural condition — it’s hoped that the vegetation will help slow erosion.

Counting park staff, museum scientists, river guides, volunteers and tribal members, nearly 100 people in all had a hand in the excavation.

“With this project we’re getting to tell stories about people from the past,” Neff says. “And the storytellers come from all over.”
 

ON DISPLAY
To learn more about this project, make plans to visit the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Grand Archaeology: Excavation and Discovery Along the Colorado River, an exhibit that shares artifacts, findings and photographs from the excavation, opens to the public on October 1. For more information, call 928-774-5213 or visit www.musnaz.org. To view a virtual tour of the project, visit http://www.nps.gov/features/grca/001/archeology/index.html.