Harvesting Historical Riches

Chance Gulch

During the summer of 2001, archaeologists renewed excavations at Chance Gulch, a late Paleoindian campsite buried below the surface of an 8000-foot-high plateau two-and-a-half miles from Gunnison.  Supported by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Western State College (WSC), work there began in 1999 when a crew of volunteers from Colorado and Arizona excavated three small test pits at the site.  The following summer, volunteers from Colorado and all over the nation excavated a larger 3 X 2-meter test block and dug trenches to determine the site's geological setting.  This work, backed by the State Historical Fund, Western State, and the BLM, proved that further investigation would eventually reveal significant new information about the region's prehistoric inhabitants.

When project director Dr.  Bonnie Pitblado contemplated a new season of work for the summer of 2001, she decided not only to conduct full-fledged excavations at Chance Gulch, but also to expand the traditional corps of assistants by offering ten-week field school internships to Native American youths.  Specifically, she invited high school students from the Southern, Northern, and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.

Dustin Weaver, a Native American student who grew up on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado, seized the opportunity to help.  Weaver wrote to Western State, stating his wish to "learn more about my heritage, how people in the past hunted and how the people prepared the food they ate." This response was just what WSC had in mind when it sent out the call for interns.

When Weaver referred to "my heritage" he asserted an affiliation between his people (present-day Southern Utes) and Paleoindian peoples that inhabited Chance Gulch and the surrounding Gunnison Basin thousands of years ago.  Most Utes consider the Gunnison Basin to be part of their traditional homeland.  However, most of the known Paleoindian archaeological evidence is located outside the Southern Ute reservation.  The field school would provide Native American students like Weaver with personally relevant archaeological experience, as well as college credit, a stipend, and housing for the summer.

During the Ute internship program's first season, Weaver and J'Rita Mills (from the Ute Mountain Ute reservation), as well as traditional Western State College students, archaeologists, and volunteers, enlarged the 2000 test block and conducted full-fledged excavations.  They uncovered artifacts-including hearth charcoal pieces, chipped stone tools, and faunal remains-at a rate of over 200 per day.  Project personnel beamed with pride at each new find.  They had cause to celebrate: each artifact added another piece to the puzzle of prehistoric life in the Rocky Mountains.  Their work, again supported by the State Historical Fund, the BLM, Western State College, and private donors, verified that early humans-including men, women, and children-had camped at Chance Gulch 8000 years ago.  According to Dr. Pitblado, intact late-Paleoindian campsites located in intermountain basins and at such a high altitude are extremely rare.

In 2002, Utah State University assumed responsibility for the Chance Gulch project and Ute internship program, while the BLM, private donors, and the State Historical Fund continued to support the work.  Archaeologists continued full-fledged excavations and searched for the boundaries of the Paleoindian deposits while five Native American students, including representatives from all three Ute tribes, joined the team.  This fall, project members are expanding public education programs with classroom storytelling, a web page, and an educational video that will be sent to schools in hopes that thousands of children will join in the excitement of digging up new knowledge about the ancient world.

But the project's lasting value may be more personal.  Speaking to a television news reporter last year, Weaver said that he was "beginning to see the big picture, how we used to migrate and live and hunt." His use of the personal pronoun "we" reflects more than a scholarly interest with his subject.  It connotes a real connection to the past and to his ancestral homeland.  As one Southern Ute tribal member wrote, "The future of our young membership depends heavily on the awareness, understanding, and preservation of their cultural, traditional, and spiritual values connected to significant prehistoric and historic cultural resource sites."

BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor

Want to help? Call Dr. Bonnie Pitblado, Utah State University, at 435/797-1496 or email bpitblado@hass.usu.edu.