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Ancient America: Utah's Archaic Indians [1]
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Date: 2025-04-26
Ten thousand years ago, Native American people in what is now Utah had a lifeway that was centered around a pattern of seasonal wandering, the hunting of animals, and the gathering of plants. The time period which archaeologists call the Archaic Period in Utah lasted for a long time: from about 10,000 years ago to 1,500 years ago.
With regard to the designation Archaic, Alan Schroedl, in an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, writes:
“The name Archaic is not meant to imply a backward or outmoded style of life; on the contrary, the Archaic lifeway was the most dynamic and flexible mode of adaptation that ever developed in the New World. Based on a pattern of regional specialization, it was the most persistent of all the known technological stages in North America.”
With regard to the Archaic Period in Utah, Robert McPherson, in his chapter in A History of Utah’s American Indians, writes:
“Over this long period of time, Native American groups have survived in an austere environment that required an intimate knowledge of the land and its resources.”
Alan Schroedl also writes:
“This lifeway was centered around a pattern of seasonal wandering, the hunting of animals, and the gathering of plants.”
In an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, Joel Janetski explains:
“Particularly important were small seeds and nuts (grass seeds, pickleweed, bulrush, etc.) and both large and small animals (mountain sheep, deer, antelope, rabbits, ground squirrels, and others). Seeds were collected in tremendous numbers using baskets of various kinds and were processed into flour with milling stones.”
The milling stones are, of course, part of the archaeological record that provides us with clues about the lifeways of archaic peoples. In his book Comb Ridge and its People: The Ethnohistory of a Rock, Robert McPherson writes:
“The Archaic people appear to have been all business, preoccupied with survival, capturing and consuming everything edible from lizards to prickly pears to mice to grasses to bighorn sheep.”
By 7500 BCE, the Utah Native Americans were engaged in a roving pattern of hunting and gathering and occupying settlements seasonally. Some of the plant foods being used by the people at this time included seeds from pickleweed. They were also hunting big game animals including deer, pronghorn antelope, mountain sheep, elk, and buffalo. They were trapping small game, such as rabbit, with netting.
The Archaic Period in Utah ends with the emergence of the Fremont people in 1500 BCE.
The archaeological evidence of human habitation in Utah during the Archaic Period comes primarily from caves and rockshelters. This does not necessarily mean that these were used as their primary homes, but rather the preservation of materials was better in these locations and thus the archaeologists are more likely to find evidence here.
Briefly described below are a few of Utah’s Archaic Period archaeological sites.
Danger Cave
Some of the earliest evidence of Native Americans in Utah comes from Danger Cave. Archaeological evidence shows that American Indians were camping here by 9000 BCE. They were lighting fires on the cave’s sandy floor and leaving a scattering of stone flakes and milling stones.
North Creek Shelter
Indian people were occupying the North Creek Shelter on the western edge of the Escalante Valley by 7,690 BCE. This is an area where three streams come together to form the Escalante River. They had an oval-shaped hearth toward the back of the shelter. Among the food resources which they were exploiting was deer.
Old Man Cave
Indian people were occupying Old Man Cave by 6900 BCE. The plants being used by the people at this site included prickly pear, sand dropseed, marsh elder, sunflower, and goosefoot. Indian rice grass was also an important food.
Hogup Cave
In 6350 BCE, Indian people began to use Hogup Cave as a base camp. Here they gathered plants for food, fuel, and for making baskets and mats. They also hunted waterfowl, small mammals, and larger mammals. The larger mammals included pronghorn antelope, mule deer, mountain sheep, and bison.
Among the artifacts left at Hogup Cave were engraved pebbles. Archaeologists are somewhat puzzled about the use of the odd little stone slabs and pebbles. They were neatly engraved with some tough stone tool; the simple designs being cut rather carefully in any of several geometric patterns.
Sudden Shelter
By 6000 BCE, Indian people were occupying the Sudden Shelter located in Ivie Creek Canyon. Hunting was the major activity carried out by the people who occupied this site. Sudden Shelter was a base camp from which the people were able to exploit a wide variety of resources. One of the main animals being hunted there was the mule deer.
By 4300 BCE, the Indian people who occupied Sudden Shelter had changed their patterns of resource exploitation. They were now using slab-lined fire pits and milling stones, indicating that plant resources had become more important. The most heavily utilized plant resource at this time was goosefoot. At this time Sudden Shelter was occupied primarily between April and September.
By 2600, the Indian people at Sudden Shelter were using more amaranth. In addition, they were hunting more bighorn sheep. While the technology used by the Indian people at Sudden Shelter was similar in many respects to the hunters and gatherers who occupied this area later, the size of the local group at Sudden Shelter appears to have been smaller.
Deluge Shelter
By 5000 BCE, Indian people were occupying the Deluge Shelter on Jones Hole Creek. The people at this site were hunting mule deer.
Spotten Cave
About 4000 BCE, there was a dramatic increase in the number of sites occupied by Indian people. There was a broadening of settlement patterns with an increased emphasis on the exploitation of resources in the upland zones. At this time, Indian people were using Spotten Cave at the south end of Utah Valley. Spotten Cave was used as a temporary stopover as the people moved from the Goshen Valley bottoms to the uplands of Long Ridge or the Wasatch Front.
Thorne Cave
In 2220 BCE, Indian people began to occupy Thorne Cave in the Uinta Basin. They were hunting jackrabbit, cottontail, antelope, beaver, and bighorn sheep.
American Fork Cave
By 1700 BCE, Indian people were now using American Fork Cave. The cave was used as a base camp from which mountain sheep were hunted in the steep and broken country of American Fork Canyon.
More Ancient America
Ancient America: The Marmes Rockshelter
Ancient America: Paquime, trading center between the Southwest and Mexico
Ancient America: American Indians at Rancho La Brea
Ancient America: The Halliday Site in Illinois
Ancient America: The Meadowcroft Rockshelter
Ancient America: The Paleo-Indian Period in Texas (prior to 8000 BCE)
Ancient America: Paleoindian stone tools in Washington's Plateau area
Ancient America: The Columbia Plateau, 2000 to 500 BCE
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