Fremont Indian State Park and Museum

Fremont Indian State Park and Museum
Utah State Park
Rock art at Fremont Indian State Park
Country	United States
State	Utah
County	Sevier
Coordinates	38°34′39″N 112°20′06″W / 38.57750°N 112.33500°W / 38.57750; -112.33500Coordinates: 38°34′39″N 112°20′06″W / 38.57750°N 112.33500°W / 38.57750; -112.33500
Highest point
- location	Big Bench Trail
- elevation	6,102 ft (1,860 m)
Lowest point
- location	Clear Creek
- elevation	5,709 ft (1,740 m)
Area	889 acres (360 ha) [1]
Founded	1987
Management	Utah State Parks
Visitation	101,993 (2011) [2]
IUCN category	V - Protected Landscape/Seascape
Location of Fremont Indian State Park and Museum in Utah

Fremont Indian State Park and Museum is a state park of Utah, US, which interprets archaeological remains of the Fremont culture. The park is located in Sevier County, Utah in the Clear Creek Canyon.

The park directly adjoins Interstate 70 as it travels up the Clear Creek Canyon, and thus is highly accessible by auto. The nearest town with full services (motels, etc.) is Richfield. There are campgrounds and RV parks in the area as well.

The site was discovered during construction of Interstate 70, and thousands of artifacts have been excavated from the ancient village and put on permanent display at the museum there.^[3] The museum offers hiking trails and picnic areas.

The Fremont Indians were agriculturalists who lived from about 400 to 1300 in north and central Utah and adjacent parts of Colorado, Idaho and Nevada. The Fremont are thought to have come from hunter-gatherers who previously lived in this location and were influenced by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples who introduced corn and pottery, making year-round settlements possible.

Culture

The area occupied by the state park was once inhabited by indigenous peoples associated with the Fremont Culture. They were part-time farmers who lived in scattered semi-sedentary farmsteads and small villages. They made pottery, built houses and food storage facilities, and raised maize. The numerous petroglyphs and cultural artifacts located within the park are testament to the artistic proclivities of the Fremont People.

The earliest Fremont sites are five centuries older than Ancestral Pueblo, which therefore cannot be the main source of Fremont culture. Fremont basketry is continuous from earlier local Archaic forms, so most archaeologists conclude that the culture arose mainly as the result of Mogollon influence on Great Basin hunter-gatherers. The Fremont theme has several variations, but there are common traits, including ceramics, clay figurines, petroglyphs styles, and settlement styles.

The Fremont tradition ended when droughts forced Fremont people to abandon their settlements and their traditional subsistence. Abandonment began as early as AD 950 in northeast Utah, but the Fremont tradition persisted four centuries longer around the marshlands of northwest Utah. Some were probably absorbed by Numic-speaking bands of hunter-gatherers that moved into the region from the southwest. Others migrated to the Southwest, the Plains, or northward into Idaho.

References

External links

Media related to Fremont Indian State Park at Wikimedia Commons

• Fremont Indian State Park and Museum