Fremont mounds in Utah ?

[kbs2244]

http://fox13now.com/2015/05/27/archaeol ... utah-lake/

From the News Page.

Archaeologists believe farmland in Provo was one place where ancient Fremont Indians once lived. Artifacts found there date back to 800 AD.
“In the 1930’s there were a 120-130 standing mounds with archeology on them. Today, we think these are the last three that remains,” said Michael Searcy, BYU Archaeology Professor.

I have never heard of mounds this far west.
Or of the Fremont being mound builders.
I understood them to be cliff dwellers.

Does anybody have any links to more information.

[shawomet]

I don't think he's referring to mounds in the same sense as Ohio and Mississippi Valley's, but rather what a preserved village looks like:

http://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historycu ... ndians.htm

"Baker Village
The westernmost known Fremont site, Baker Village, is located only a few miles from Great Basin National Park. Believed to be occupied from 1220 to 1295 A.D., the site had been known to archeologists for many years because of a visible raised mound covered with a scattering of potsherds and chipped stone."


I think the "mound" is what has built up since abandonment....

[kbs2244]

Thanks.
That makes sense.

[Minimalist]

I don't think he's referring to mounds in the same sense as Ohio and Mississippi Valley's, but rather what a preserved village looks like:

http://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historycu ... ndians.htm

"Baker Village
The westernmost known Fremont site, Baker Village, is located only a few miles from Great Basin National Park. Believed to be occupied from 1220 to 1295 A.D., the site had been known to archeologists for many years because of a visible raised mound covered with a scattering of potsherds and chipped stone."


I think the "mound" is what has built up since abandonment....

Yeah - if you ever saw the way the wind can blow dust around here that would come as no surprise whatsoever.




I think one day we are going to lose Phoenix.

[kbs2244]

After all the above, something still was nagging at me.
All the evidence of the Fremont shows them to be mountain, cliff dwelling types.
Why would they leave flat land “mounds?”

[shawomet]

After all the above, something still was nagging at me.
All the evidence of the Fremont shows them to be mountain, cliff dwelling types.
Why would they leave flat land “mounds?”

The Fremont were not cliff dwellers like the Anasazi, but lived in pithouses. And the pithouses themselves assumed a mound like appearance:

http://ilovehistory.utah.gov/place/buil ... round.html

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapte ... emont.html

[shawomet]

Note: not building villages in cliffs. See the photo of village location at this link. You can see they are located in a wide open area. Their granaries are often located in the recesses of canyon cliff walls, so yes, they were in the mountains and cliffs, but they did not live in actual cliff dwellings as the later generations of Anasazi did.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/s ... f5a45.html

http://www.archaeologicalconservancy.or ... unds-utah/

"Through a fortuitous collaboration of agencies and organizations, the Conservancy has acquired Paragonah Mounds, a Fremont village in Utah’s Parowan Valley. Although, according to historical documents, the site had more than 400 mounds covering close to a square mile in the late 1800s, the largest remaining intact portion is a 12-acre site containing 28 mounds. Nonetheless, the site, which dates between A.D. 700 and 1300, is still one of the largest Fremont villages known in the state. While farming and residential development have destroyed much of the enormous site over the years, what remains is well preserved."


https://gmmacdonald.wordpress.com/2008/ ... ican-west/

"Between AD 1200 and AD 1500 the Fremont disappeared, their villages and fields fell into ruin and no other agriculturists tilled the fields of northern Utah until the arrival of Europeans. When the Spanish led Dominguez-Escalante Expedition crossed northern Utah in 1776 they reported the following from near present-day Roosevelt:

“We continued upstream along the latter and after going west one league we saw the ruins near it of a very ancient pueblo where there were fragments of stones for grinding maize, of jars and of pots of clay. The pueblos shape was circular as indicated by the ruins now almost completely in mounds.”

[shawomet]

https://books.google.com/books?id=rM0sm ... ds&f=false

The above 1874 description of the Paragonah mounds seems to suggest they were all pit house mounds, hundreds in number.....

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56626 ... y.html.csp

"The mounds aren't so random. Instead they're arranged in a kind of semi-circle, and a careful eye reveals not all the rocks are just stones.

A few are shards of sophisticated, thin-walled pottery created by the ancient Fremont people......

.......This is one of the last, if not the last, pristine mound sites in the state," McDonald said."

https://books.google.com/books?id=oXflX ... ds&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=VZFHA ... ds&f=false


The Fremont did build granaries in canyon cliffs, but did not live in cliff dwellings per se.......

[shawomet]

Another telling notation regarding the Paragonah mounds:

http://www.suunews.com/news/2013/aug/29 ... ot-it-had/

"Talbot said the site was first visited by Brigham Young back in 1851. Young noted the site to be 2 miles long and 1 mile wide, with over 100 ancient housing mounds where Paragonah is located. The Fremont Indians built new housing structures on top of old ones after they collapsed, he said, creating a deep layer of mounds today where they once stood.

Facebook page for Paragonah mounds:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 836&type=1

[kbs2244]

I am thinking of the privately owned valley that was recently turned over to public possession.
It was very narrow with “Fremont” rock art, grain storage, and burials along it’s full length.

But no residences?

So all this indicates they were flatlanders that retreated to the mountains when the need arose?

Doesn’t the oral history indicate that their last stand was in a cave?

[shawomet]

I am thinking of the privately owned valley that was recently turned over to public possession.
It was very narrow with “Fremont” rock art, grain storage, and burials along it’s full length.

But no residences?

So all this indicates they were flatlanders that retreated to the mountains when the need arose?

Doesn’t the oral history indicate that their last stand was in a cave?

If they disappeared around 1500 A.D., how would we have a Fremont oral history at all? I guess we should also not think of them in too narrow terms when it comes to life ways:

http://cpluhna.nau.edu/People/fremont.htm

Flatlanders? All I know is they lived in the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin.

Their neighbors to the south, Ancestral Puebloan, also lived in pithouses early in their cultural history. And mesa top pueblos, and Cliff dwellings, the latter probably during stressful times.

Not sure what oral history you're referring to, but there must be some confusion involved here. It can't be Fremont oral history. When you say "retreat to mountains", what do you mean? Not many people will build villages on mountainous terraine, no? Utah is a rugged landscape. Mountains, canyons. I'm sure they were thoroughly familiar with what we call Utah and Nevada north of the Colorado. Sounds like you're thinking of them in too monolithic a style somehow, it's a diverse group of survivalists when you come down to it. Living in a diverse topography, including Basin and Range. Only thing I can add at this point is there is no oral history for these long gone people. Unless later historic groups claim the Fremont are ancestral, I don't know...