Lessons and visions in the desert

Southern Living, Oct 1999 by Young, Dianne

I pick my way around the jumble of boulders beneath the cliff, methodically scouring the ground. I stare so hard my eyes ache, and then I spy it-a pottery piece a bit bigger than a half-dollar.

Vaguely triangular, gray, and corrugated, the shard perhaps has lain in this sandy soil unnoticed for centuries. The thrill of discovery feels like an electric jolt, and I whoop, "Here's one!"

I scramble down the talus slope, bearing the shard like a treasure to archaeologist Doug Bowman. The pieces we've found will be returned to their original sites, but for now Doug arranges them in a makeshift time line that traces the changing culture of the people who left them behind hundreds of years ago.

Those people were the Anasazi, the "ancient ones," who lived for more than a millennium in our Southwest. Inexplicably around 1300 A.D. they abandoned their settlements, including this Utah cliff dwelling we are here to document as part of a trip run by the Four Corners School of Outdoor Education.

Doug, who has worked as an archaeologist for the Anasazi Heritage Center Museum and the Ute Tribal Park, details the progression of the gathered pieces. "Pottery is the only thing that firmly dates the site. Most rock art appeared in the Basketmaker III period," he says, beginning an informal lecture, "say, 0 to 500 A.D. Then as Pueblo people began to develop, the rock art dropped off. They started with plain gray ware. Then their pottery became more colorful and detailed as they put their cultural symbolism into the ceramics and not so much on the walls.

"They did beautiful jewelry. They did beautiful ceramics. They did beautiful engineering," Doug continues, as he pauses to look at the crumbling but dignified ruins of their dwellings. The buildings are wedged under a south-facing overhang at the head of a modest canyon along Comb Ridge, outside of Bluff. Behind the largest structures, including a circular kiva, Cold Springs seeps soundlessly from the earth. Nearby, square granaries contain a handful of tiny, parched corncobs.

Rock art along the canyon wall, like a time-capsule message, speaks of other worlds, other lives. There's a pictograph chipped into the stone of a hunter shooting a deer or elk with a bow and arrow. Ghostly handprints, painted in red, white, and yellow ochre, cluster together. They are, says Doug, a kind of signature or celebration. In one spot, a single eerie stick figure stands among them, and it looks almost as if a hand is reaching out to grasp it.

The 15 of us participating in this Four Corners "Ed-Venture" all share a fascination with the Anasazi. We admire the way they grafted their architecture onto the high-desert landscape with subtle grace. Their art fires our imaginations, and just the mystery of their lives, their passing, touches some chord in our souls. So we have come to spend a week camping and working, laughing and learning the lessons Doug can teach us about their days.

We rise each morning, hike the 1 1/2 miles to the Cold Springs site, and tend to our daily tasks. Some of us survey and sketch a detailed plan of the layout. Others photograph and copy every piece of art. Says Doug, "When we get through, the site will be 100% recorded, and archaeologists 100 years from now will be able to use that information when this site will be vastly deteriorated."

Our reward, though, is immediate. It comes in the connection we feel with a people whose lost culture, like a brilliant Southwestern sunset, ignites our minds and lingers in our hearts. Dianne Young

The Four Corners School of Outdoor Education offers a variety of archaeological trips. This 7-day, 6night Butler Wash Archaeology and Rock Art trip costs $800 per person. To learn more write the school at PO. Box 1029, Monticello, UT 84535; or call 1-800-525-4456. Or visit www.sw-adventures.org.