September 1: A Day at the Museum

Since this day is the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, we decided to leave the Mesa Verde crowds and head to the Dolores River Valley

about 15 miles north of Mesa Verde.

Our destination was the Anasazi Heritage Museum

(note the non-PC name), another fine small museum devoted to the study of ancestral Pueblo culture and to the archeology of the region, which includes the Delores River Valley and the McElmo Dome area.  All part of the "Montezuma Valley" below Mesa Verde to the north and west.  (Remember:  Dove Creek pinto beans and hay.)

The museum is also the headquarters of the recently formed Canyons of the Ancients National Monument,

which meant that we were greeted at the entrance by representatives of several different agencies.  It was a little confusing; however, the good part was that we got in free with our senior pass because it had recently become a national facility.

In particular, it is the depository for archeological data gathered in the entire region.  This does not sound like much, but it is.

You see, in the 1980s the Dolores River was dammed up to provide irrigation, power, and recreation to the Montezuma Valley.  Federal Law required "salvage archaeology" to precede construction (destruction?).  The result has changed the interpretation of ancestral Puebloan history.  Low and behold (pun intended), archaeologists found early Pueblo villages (Pueblo I and II) all the way up and down the "fill" area.  Over 1600 sites were found and almost two million artifacts recovered.

Who knew?  Thanks to taxpayer dollars, salvage archaeology like the Dolores Archaeological Program is changing interpretations of pre-historic civilizations in America.  Best of all, the museum has not only published the full reports, but has made the data and photos of artifacts available on-line.  Check it out.

One of the goals of the museum is to educate the public on the new methods of archaeological work and new anthropological interpretations of the data, including rock art.  The old archaeology wanted to "excavate" and create visual displays for show.  Today, archaeologists use ground radar, aerial photography, and core sampling to avoid disturbing sites as much as possible.  What excavations are performed are done through a "sampling" process and the results extrapolated using computers.  Then sites are reburied for future researchers.  (Unless they are flooded of course.)

Until we visited the museum, we had not hear of archeomagnetic dating.

We knew about dendrochronology and its revolutionary importance in allowing scholars to date wood (or charcoal) from sites from the Southwest.  But now soil from hearths can be carefully tested for the magnetic alignment of iron particles, revealing when the soil was heated.

The museum had lots of displays and hands-on exhibits for kids.  I liked the recreation of the interior of a pithouse with authentic artifacts displayed.

Better to see the baskets in context rather than just on a shelf under glass--

same for metates.

I could not help but think of the metates lined up at Cliff Palace when I see this photo on the wall of the museum.

It shows contemporary Hopi women grinding together in work spaces virtually identical to those in Cliff Palace.

We spent a long time in the museum looked at historic photographs of prominent archaeologists at work and play

and at databases and in microscopes that showed the difference in mineral content of pottery sherds from different cultural eras and locations.  There was even a display of how ancient pottery was fired in kilns discovered on Mesa Verde.

Then we hiked behind the museum to an archaeological ruin, the Escalante Great House,

excavated back in the 1920s or 1930s.  We were a bit put off by the warnings of rattlesnakes

and a recent mountain lion sighting.

But we bravely forged ahead, careful to stay on the paved surface the whole time.  Besides I figured the young children walking behind us would be more tantalizing.