posted
Nine Mile Canyon, possibly the coolest place in the state of Utah, has been placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2004 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. See link .
There have been serious efforts to conduct gas and oil testing and drilling in and around the canyon. However, there are a lot of people who are worried about the impacts of these proposed activities, especially the potential for damage to the thousands of prehistoric archeological sites and rock art.
My uncle is the foremost authority on the archeology of Nine Mile Canyon. He has had a lot of problems of his own in his job with the BLM. His opposition to the testing and drilling has met with stern disapproval. See this news story
Anybody who has the opportunity should go see this amazing site for themselves, before it is too late. If you appreciate what you see, I hope you take whatever action you may deem appropriate to encourage the federal government to protect the canyon.
quote:My uncle is the foremost authority on the archeology of Nine Mile Canyon
Tell us about the cool stuff that has been found in caves in Nine Mile Canyon. Did they really find engravings on metal plates?
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I have never heard of metal plates being found in Nine Mile Canyon. As far as I know, the only metal found there was brought there by visitors or pioneers.
There aren't even any caves to speak of. There may be a few small ones, but that's really not where the rock art or artifacts are found. The rock art is generally on flat, exposed rock faces, sometimes with a small overhang protecting it. There's a ton of it, both pictographs (painted) and petroglyphs (carved). As for artifacts, there are remains of dwellings up on the tops of the mesas and sometimes in small hollows in the cliff faces, there are rock granaries in the canyons, there are fragments of pottery, some basketry, leatherwork, wooden and stone tools, corn cobs, etc. But what the Canyon is best known for is really the rock art.
If anyone is familiar with the writing of Wallace Stegner, he wrote an entire chapter about the Canyon into his novel Recapitulation (the sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain).
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It is interesting that the definition of "objective" is that you have to support the Bush agenda to explore the region for oil and gas. Have they ever considered the possibility that for scientists who have studied something for decades "passion" might be the objective response to the facts? If the foremost expert in the world says something is a problem, shouldn't the rest of us listen rather than occuse him of loosing his scientific objectivity.
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I remember now where I read about caves in Nine-Mile Canyon. Please don't laugh. It was in a book called The Gold of Carre-Shinob by Kerry Ross Boren.
On page 138 Boren says that two men were hunting for arrow heads in 1960 near a place called Sand Wash at the mouth of Minnie Maud Canyon, which is a branch of Nine Mile Canyon. The two men stumbled upon a small cave, which was full of strange artifacts, including the mummified body of a 7-foot tall man.
The only items they removed from the cave were eight small copper plates, which had inscriptions on them. They showed the copper plates to professors of archeology at the University of Utah who laughed at them, but Dr. Jesse Jennings kept four of the plates for analysis. Jennings later donated two of the plates to the LDS Church.
Attempts to re-locate the cave revealed that the area is now fenced off with chain-link and signs that say: "No Trespassing, Property University of Utah."
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posted
There have been "mummies" found at Nine Mile (thought they're not really mummies -- they're just desert-dried). And although calling the hollowed-out places "caves" is a bit of a stretch, the description you give is pretty typical.
However, there are two problems. First, the Fremont people who left most of the dwellings, art and artifacts at Nine Mile were not tall. They were quite short. Second, I have never heard of any metal artifacts being found at any of the Nine Mile sites. Certainly nothing with writing on it.
However, I have heard certain people from central Utah talk about finds like the one you describe. They also talk about ancient Jaredite temples in Manti, and lost caves in the area containing mummies, stone tablets, chests, etc. They also tend to be connected with the odder LDS offshoot groups, sometimes even the polygamist ones. So I don't take those claims at all seriously. I know my aunt and uncle (both Central Utah archeologists) don't take them seriously.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
The New York Times printed a pretty long article on June 13 about Nine Mile Canyon, and specifically about the BLM's treatment of my uncle, Blaine Miller, because of his outspoken efforts to protect the canyon. It's a good article, but I don't think it comes down hard enough on the government or on the company that is trying to develop the canyon for natural gas exploration and production.
I was thinking last night that you can tell most of the environmentally impacting decisions of the world are made by people who don't wash dishes by hand.
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