KAIBABITSINUNGWU: An Archaeological Survey of the Kaiparowits Plateau

The Navajo Nation Archaeology Department (NNAD) conducted an archaeological survey of 17,280 acres on the central and western portions of the Kaiparowits Plateau in south-central Utah. The principal survey objective was to obtain data to characterize and estimate the density, distribution, and diversity of cultural resources in the 800,000 acre Kaiparowits Plateau study area. A secondary goal was to examine patterns in the distribution of cultural remains that are potentially reflective of settlement and land-use strategies for various environmental zones and temporal periods.

NNAD used a stratified probability sample, wherein sample frames coincided with a series of broad benches and tablelands that effectively furnished self-defined strata, being bounded and relatively homogeneous with respect to geology, soil, elevation, and vegetation. The sampling design explicitly omitted portions of the Kaiparowits Plateau, such as Fiftymile Mountain and steep rugged terrain poorly suited to human use. Nine sample strata were surveyed during the two separate phases of fieldwork, one in 1998 and another in 2000. The Phase 1 survey focused on five strata that comprise the western portion of the project area: Horse Mountain, Long Flat, Horse Flat, Brigham Plains, and East Clark Bench, whereas the Phase 2 survey concentrated on the remaining four sample strata, which comprise the central portion of the project area: Collet Top, Fourmile Bench, Smoky Mountain, and Nipple Bench. For the Phase 1 effort the 53 units were distributed among the five western sampling strata by simple proportional allocation, but for Phase 2, the 55 units were distributed among the four central strata by optimal allocation using variance estimates based on the Phase 1 results.

NNAD archaeologists documented 710 archaeological sites and 816 isolated occurrences. The 710 sites consist of 670 that are prehistoric, 19 with both prehistoric and historic components, and 21 that are historic. NNAD archaeologists considered 514 of the 710 sites (72.4%) as eligible to the National Register of Historic Places based on their potential to yield data important for interpreting prehistory; 196 sites were classified as not eligible. Site density varied from a low of 0.7 per quarter section on Nipple Bench to 12.1 per quarter section on Horse Mountain. The overall average site density was 6.6 sites per quarter section or 26.4 per section. The survey clearly demonstrates that higher elevation benches generally contain significantly more sites than the lower elevation benches. Sites are not randomly distributed but are clustered in specific areas to take advantage of desirable resources such as easy access, food, and water. Based on the survey data, we estimate that there are approximately 7730 sites within the nine sampling frames. Given the terrain excluded by our survey, the actual site count for the Kaiparowits Plateau likely exceeds 10,000.

Documented Native American remains date from the early Archaic (ca. 8000 cal. B.C.) into the historic period, potentially overlapping with the Euro-American use of the area in the early 1900s. Occupation may not have been continuous, but Native people appear to have used the area in some fashion during each major time period. Archaic sites are the most numerous among all temporal periods, and the 321 components assigned to this interval represent 43 percent of the Native American components documented. At the other end of the temporal spectrum, Post-Formative foragers account for 48 sites, and another 38 sites may date anywhere from Formative to Post-Formative. We assume that Post-Formative sites are evidence of Southern Paiute use of the Kaiparowits Plateau because this was the principal group using the area during the time of contact. Because Archaic sites cover a huge span of time, roughly 6000 years, Post-Formative sites actually have a greater density per unit of time: 0.05 Archaic sites per year compared to 0.1 Post-Formative sites per year.

The archaeological records left by foragers at different ends of the temporal spectrum (Archaic and Post-Formative) appear quite different, suggesting that perhaps Paiute ethnographies cannot be used in simple analogical fashion to reconstruct Archaic forager behavior. Contrasts in the morphology of Archaic and Paiute sites and assemblages imply differences in settlement and subsistence strategies and in the organization of flaked stone technology. Patterns of raw material usage imply that Archaic foragers were perhaps ranging further or that they periodically occupied places infrequently used by the Paiute occupants of the area. Small and briefly occupied camps used for processing and hunting are
the most common types of Post-Formative sites, with few large residential camps. The distribution of Post-Formative sites coincides with the area that Isabel Kelly (1934, 1964) mapped as the core territory of the Kwaguiuavi economic unit of the Kaiparowits Band of the Southern Paiute.

The Kaiparowits Plateau Survey also documented the remains of both Fremont and Anasazi occupation during the Formative period. There are no Fremont structural sites, just scatters of stone artifacts with sparse sherds of Emery Gray. Most of these sites appear to be temporary residential camps associated with foraging and hunting in the region. Based on pottery associations, Fremont use of the area probably predated A.D. 1100 and was prior to the main Anasazi occupation. Anasazi use of the survey area seems to have been much more intensive and varied than that of the Fremont, including semipermanent residential sites and granaries along with residential camps, processing camps, and hunting camps. The 62 recorded Anasazi sites represent a huge spike in the intensity of use of the Kaiparowits Plateau, as these correspond to a comparatively brief span of use, on the order of 100 years or less. The density of Anasazi sites per unit of time is about 0.6 or even more; thus the Anasazi remains on portions of the plateau represent an intensity of use of the area not seen before or after. The survey documented portions of a small community of Anasazi residential sites on Collet Top that mimic the findings from Fiftymile Mountain surveyed by the University of Utah for the Glen Canyon Project. Half of the sites have masonry and jacal structures in the form of single rooms and roomblocks, with up to at least 8 rooms in one case. A local developmental trajectory is lacking for this community, thus the Anasazi people were likely immigrants to the plateau. We believe that the source for this population is more likely to have been from the west and that the notion of a Kayenta migration to the Kaiparowits Plateau does not square with the evidence on the ground.

The majority of the 40 Euro-American sites documented by the survey indicate that use of the area was greatest between 1900 and the middle 1930s, with another flurry of activity in the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly all of the historic sites from the earlier period appear related to ranching, whereas the later resources reflect mineral exploration.