Baker Archeological Site Walking Tour

Marcia E. Phillips

Baker Village Trail Guide

(Note: Items in boldface type with underscore are defined in the Glossary.)

For a moment think about what brought you here. Perhaps you are here because you are curious about the past, curious about people and how they survived here. In this sense, we are all archeologists – if we have any curiosity at all about people of the past, then we are functioning as archeologists. No matter how different they were from us in some ways, they were like us, living on the earth, living beneath the sky. Here, we can ponder the lives of these long ago people. In asking questions about them, we also look at ourselves. What we learn gives us new perspectives on what it means to be human. Even if we never know all the answers, we can question and ponder what happened here, each question leading to answers and thence more questions – deepening our understanding of humanity, then and now.

 

Marcia E. Phillips

The Baker Archeological Site (also known as Baker Village) was excavated from 1991 to 1994 and a great deal of evidence was collected. After the excavations were completed the site was backfilled, (reburied with the dirt that was removed during excavation), a necessary step in protecting the cultural features that remain, to preserve them for possible future studies. As a result, the foundations of the village can no longer been seen on the surface. The walls that you see are modern walls, built here in 2002. The buried walls were capped to protect them from erosion by wind. They are fragile, please do not walk on them.

 

The excavations revealed the tools, homes, and artwork of Baker Village. Based on these physical remains, conclusions were drawn, yet many mysteries remain. Who were they? Where did they go? In what ways were they like us? In what ways were they different? Baker Village poses these questions, with no final answers. As you follow the numbered posts out to Baker Village, ponder these mysteries.

The answers we do have were discovered by the exacting techniques of modern archeology. Many clues were put together to discover part of the story of Baker Village. This guide will describe what was uncovered and how we interpret these findings.

Follow the Trail. Enter the Past.

***You might want to get a hat and a bottle of water and put on some sunscreen. Please – remember to leave everything as you find it – leaving the thrill of discovery to everyone who comes after you.***

 

Marcia E. Phillips

Just ahead are the remains of Baker Village, an archeological site belonging to the Fremont Culture. The culture is named for sites along the Fremont River, in Utah. “Fremont” sites share similarities in pottery styles and materials, basketry techniques, and distinctive ceremonial artwork. Keep in mind that an archeological culture is not the same as a living culture. We do not know what language they spoke, or what they believed. We cannot see or hear their dances and songs. Since no human remains were found here, we cannot know who their descendants are with any certainty. We only know what the physical remains of their culture tell us – they farmed, built stable, permanent villages, and they made certain styles of pottery and projectile points. Does this mean that we cannot delve into the deeper mysteries of prehistoric culture? Actually it does not; it only means that clues to meaning must be searched for within the context of the physical remains left behind.

 

Cutaway view of a pit house.

Marcia E. Phillips

The Fremont were contemporaries of the more famous Ancestral Puebloans, (another archeological culture), the builders of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Archeologists have known about this Fremont site near Baker for many years. There was a visible raised mound on the service hat was covered with a scatter of chipped stone and pottery sherds.

 

Cutaway view of the Big House, and adobe structure, as it may have appeared 700 years ago.

Marcia E. Phillips

Excavation revealed a great deal more. We now know that they collected wild plant foods and grew corn, beans, and squash. We know that trade in obsidian, turquoise, and shell connected them with distant villages. They built a complex village of adobe structures and pit houses. More than 15 structures were excavated. The main period of occupation, the time during which most of the structures were built, was from A.D. 1220 to 1295.

 

Marcia E. Phillips

Look at the valley around you – what resources do you see that could have supported a stable, sedentary farming village – a village of surprising size and complexity? Look on either side of the trail. The tangled, thorny shrubs scattered over the ground are greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus). Look carefully; you can see a dip or swale winding among the bushes. You are standing in this swale, which may mark the course of a former stream. The presence of greasewood, which indicates that water is not far beneath the surface, supports this concept. Behind you, to the south, beyond the ramada, are the fields of the Baker Ranch. Looking back to the north, you can see distant clumps of trees that mark the location of other ranches. The high mountain range to the west, the Snake Range, is high enough to capture moisture from winter storms, moisture that comes mainly in the form of snow. Spring snowmelt sustains several permanent streams that flow out of the Snake Range, and that today, sustain these ranches. After pioneers came to the valley in the 1850s, the streams were diverted to water crops and livestock. Perhaps it was then that this stream dried up. Seven hundred years ago it is likely that there was a running stream of water here with cornfields and farmers.

 

In the 1850s ranches were established and streams diverted.

Marcia E. Phillips

The Fremont could have irrigated, though no evidence has yet been found of irrigation at Baker Village. This seems likely, since growing corn is not possible in the Snake Valley today without irrigation. Was it possible 700 years ago? In Utah signs of irrigation canals have been found at Fremont sites. If, indeed, the Fremont did irrigate their fields, this would be one significant difference between them and the Ancestral Puebloans, who were mainly dry farmers, in parts of the southwest where natural rainfall is sufficient to support corn agriculture without irrigation.

 

The Snake Range – The source of water for farming today.

Marcia E. Phillips

 

Marcia E. Phillips

The valley and surrounding mountains provided most of what the inhabitants of Baker Village needed. Though they raised corn and beans, the land around them provided other necessities. In some of the structures archeologists found seeds from plants of the goosefoot family, showing that wild plant foods were an important supplement to their diet. Today this group of plants is represented by four-wing saltbush (Atriplex canescens) and shadscale (Atriplex confertifolia). Animal remains found during the excavation revealed that rabbits (various species), bison (Bison bison), also known as buffalo, and pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) were occasionally eaten. Prior to the modern diversion of streams, a sizeable marsh may have been located at the site of the current Baker Ranch. It may have provided abundant cattails and other wild edibles, and possibly attracted animals to hunt.

 

Today, this land is drier, plants have changed, and it is used for grazing. The low, pale, grayish-green plant growing all around you is called winterfat (Eurotia lanata). You can see a dense patch ahead and to the left. Look for its unique pale color. The name refers to its excellent quality as winter forage for livestock, especially sheep. Other forage plants are salt brush shrubs, ricegrass (Oryzopsis hymenoides) and other grasses.

 

Plants introduced from Asia are now a part of the “natural” scene, but they are not welcome. Why? These exotic plants tend to dominate large areas. This reduces the diversity and complexity of the plant community, which in turn reduces the opportunities available for wildlife to obtain food and shelter. The result – an impoverished landscape that supports less plant and animal life, and one that is less stable through time. The low, scraggly cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) growing along the trail, and the Halogeton (Halogeton glomeratus), growing on the site of the excavation, are two examples of such plants. They are not good substitutes for the diverse natural community. Halogeton is poisonous to livestock, and cheatgrass has sharp spines on the seed heads that pierce and fester the mouth lining of cattle.