Mystery Tribe What happened to the Fremont Indians? New discoveries may tell their tale at last Betsy Carpenter Fos rent: secure, high-rise dwelling: light, airy rooms; spectacular views; in Utah's striking canyon country. If archaeologists doubled as real-estate agents, that might be how they would describe the vertiginous, cliff- top settlements in a remote canyon known as Range Creek. (The term “fixer-upper” could be used, too.) But before they could attract tenants, they would have to ex- plain why the previous occupants packed up in a hurry about 700 years ago, leaving arrows scattered on the ground and a granary still holding corn and rye. The demise of the Fremont Indians is one of North American archaeology’s most enduring mysteries, The group, which flourished for 600 years in the rugged ter- rain between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, were adaptable and surprisingly diverse: Some lived in semisubterranean “pit houses,” others in rock shelters. They farmed but also hunted and foraged for food. Yet despite their adaptability, things went south for the Fre- mont around A.D. 1250. Within a century, had virtually vanished. So, what became of them? The Range Creek site, un- veiled this year, holds important clues. The ruins are not visually spectacular like those of the Anasazi, the Fre- mont’s master-builder neighbors to the south. Still, Range Creek is astonishingly pristine and so should provide a rare window into the daily lives—and fears—of these early Americans. Remote. Range Creek escaped both the predations of looters and the excavations of archaeologists thanks in large part to local rancher Waldo Wilcox, who guarded the site for over half a century until 2001 when he sold it for $2.5 million. (The ranch is now state land.) But its in- accessibility also helped preserve the hundreds of ruins, sprawling across thousands of acres, 34 axle-crunching miles from the closest stretch of unbroken pavement, over a serpentine thriller of a mountain pass. Researchers have just begun surveying the canyon, but already the ruins are raising tantalizing questions, says archaeologist Jerry Spangler, author of a recent book on their culture the Fremont called Horned Snakes and Axle Grease. T: stubby circular remains of some pit houses, for instance, 30 feet indiameter—three times as large as the typical fr mont pit house, Archaeologists have long thought o Fremont as simple farmers who lived in small fan: groups, says Spangler. But the Range Creek mini-marsir suggest that some lived with extended families or h strong enough bonds with other families to build «= munal structures for ceremonial or other purposes. Range Creek may also reveal more about the relat ship between the Anasazi and the Fremont, who hai long suffered by comparison with them. Until now, ith been thought that the two groups didn’t interact muc But at Range Creek, almost alll the settlements are litt with Anasazi as well as Fremont pottery. (The to easy to tell apart: While the Fremont mostly made uti jan gray pots, the Anasazi crafted ornate bla ceramics, among other types.) what to make of this min; however, -and-wh Archaeologists aren'ts! igling. One intriguing possibil is that the two groups did, in fact, trade each other and that evidence of these dealings 2° Punged from other Fremont ruins by early relic hu who selectively stole the fancier Anasazi ceramics WHAT REMAINS, The Fremont (c. 700-1300) left behind rock art and ‘otsherds in what is now Utah, but ittle is really known about them—" why they disappeared. ran the Anasazi, the Fremont raised corn be Sauash, but they relied more heavily on wild foo ably trekking every year between fields neat ra trcmand foraging grounds. The Fremont lett beN” tinctive baskets, trapezoidal-shaped clay Be rock art of unparalleled beauty and comple. Anasazi have some interesting rock art,” s1v** “but the Fremont were absolutely brilliant aris