Down The Road

About a mile from our rv park here in Baker Nevada are the remains of an ancient Fremont Village.

The Fremont culture is named for sites along the Fremont River in Utah.  The Fremont people, builders of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, are contemporaries of the more famous Anasazi whose village ruins we visited in Homolovi State Park outside Winslow, AZ.  (See Explorers blog.)

In this view we are standing to the left facing the end of the lower rectangle.  700 years ago at the time of the Fremont people and before cattle ranching came into the area, the Snake (Mountain) Range provided enough moisture from snow melt to sustain several permanent streams that flow out of the mountains.  The streams provided moisture for corn, beans, cattails and other wild edibles, and attracted jackrabbits, pronghorns bison, and other wild game to the area.  Modern cattle ranchers diverted the streams to surrounding ranches and the village streams dried up. 

The low walls here were built in 2002 to protect buried adobe walls.  These walls cap prehistoric walls, conforming to their shape and direction.  

The village was quite large with more than 15 structures originally excavated.  After the 1994 excavations, dirt that had been removed from the site was returned to preserve it for future excavations.

This is the big house, facing the same way as the picture above.

In the next pictures the view is what would have been seen by standing in the middle of the right hand wall and facing outward.  From this position we could see that the village was not build haphazardly, but was carefully planned to provide an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon.  As farmers, the weather would be of prime importance.  The Fremont would have tracked the seasons and known when to plant each crop and when to harvest by noting, in the spring, the location of the rising or setting sun.  In some cases the the walls of buildings may be marked or carved where the light strikes them on certain days or a doorway positioned for the sunlight to shine through on paintings or markings.  In this way the sun watchers could use the summer and winter solstices to select the proper time to plane each crop, allowing it time to mature and ensuring an adequate harvest.

It isn't known for sure if this is what the people of this village did, but the excavations so far seem to support the idea that they did.

View of the summer solstice sunrise peak and 

notch peak

View of the winter solstice area and Burbank Hills.

After enjoying our history lesson, we walked the path back to truck, watching large lizard skitter away from us before we could snap their pictures.  Fortunately a couple of horned lizards weren't as shy.

Actually they rely on camouflage and pretended not to be there while we took some good shots. 

One more day left here in this area.

Louise and Duane