Bears Ears National Monument - Cedar Mesa Ruins

We are staying in Blanding, Utah, for a week.  This gives us a chance to visit four national monuments and other significant wilderness and cultural sites.

The one we were most curious about is Bears Ears National Monument which, located in southeastern Utah, protects over 2,112 square miles of public land surrounding the Bears Ears, a pair of mesas. Interestingly, the name of the region is the same in each of the four native languages represented there.  The monument is largely undeveloped and contains a wide array of historic, cultural and natural resources. It is co-managed by BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, along with a coalition of five local Native American tribes: the Navajo Nation, Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni, all of which have ancestral ties to the region. The monument borders Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and surrounds Natural Bridges National Monument. The monument includes the Valley of the Gods, Indian Creek Canyon, the western part of the Manti-La Sal National Forest's Monticello unit, and the Dark Canyon Wilderness.  It was designated a national monument by President Obama in 2016.  In 2017, the Trump Administration proposed dramatically scaling back the borders to about 250 square miles - a little over 10% of its present size - at the request of Local farmers and ranchers, as well as members of the oil and gas industry.

Bears Ears National Monument protects one of most significant cultural landscapes in the United States, with thousands of archaeological sites and important areas of spiritual significance. Abundant rock art, ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial kivas, and countless other artifacts provide an extraordinary archaeological and cultural record, all surrounded by a dramatic backdrop of deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and forested highlands and the monument’s namesake twin buttes. These lands are sacred to many Native American tribes today, who use the lands for ceremonies, collecting medicinal and edible plants, and gathering materials for crafting baskets and footwear.

We spent this morning trying to get acquainted with the large number of geologic, historic and archaeological sites that surround us here in Blanding, and decided that the best introduction was the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum here in Blanding.  It preserves and interprets a local site, the Edge of the Cedars Pueblo, a village inhabited by the ancestors of contemporary Puebloan peoples from AD 825 to 1125.  The museum has also been designated an approved repository for historical artifacts in the region.  It displays and excellently curates a large exhibit of Ancestral Pueblan pottery and other artifacts.  It also provides a broad and deep description of the history of Pueblo people, which helped us tie together the history of sites we have visited such as Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Tuzigoot.  The pottery exhibit itself is impressive:

On the ruins site at the museum, a beautiful Sun Sculpture is easily the most dramatic of the modern sculptures on the grounds that have been inspired by traditional Native American art.  This sculpture acts as an annual sundial, telling the time of year from the shadows cast by the sun through its carvings:

Other sculptures on the grounds translate into three dimensional concrete images embodied in rock art found in the region:

After learning about the archaeological history of local ruins, we chose three ruins to visit nearby in the Cedar Mesa area of Bears Ears National Monument.  Our first stop was Mule Canyon Ruin, an open Anasazi habitation site consisting primarily of a pueblo with 12 rooms, an underground circular kiva, and a two-story tower. This site was initially occupied briefly about 750 AD and reached its peak between 1,000 and 1,150 AD. What was unique about this site to us was the tower.  Researchers are unsure of the function these towers served, but celestial observation, defense, storage and communications are among the theories. Because the tower is linked to the kiva and the pueblo by tunnels, some believe it served a ceremonial function. There is increasing evidence that such towers found in most Anasazi sites within the Four Corners region were all within line of sight of each other and could have been used for signaling. Mule Canyon Ruin is in direct line of sight with Cave Tower, one mile to the southwest, which we also visited and describe below.

Here is a photo of a portion of the kiva, in the foreground, with the entrance to its tunnel to the tower, and the reconstructed base of the tower in the background:

Because the Mule Canyon tower had line of sight contact with the nearby Cave Towers, we visited those as well.  They were harder to access, requiring a dirt road drive, passing through a closed gate, and a half mile hike to the edge of a nearby canyon:

Arriving at the site, we discovered the remains of seven towers, arrayed around the head of the canyon where a spring gushes up from underground.  Archaeologists theorize that the towers were intended to protect the spring.  However, ruins of cave dwellings were obvious in the canyon walls, and so we guess that the towers were meant for defense of the community as well as the water source.  Here was the first tower we spotted:

This was the second of the three towers that had any portions still standing:

The third tower still retains its original shape and still boasts an intact entrance:

The canyon over which the towers stand is dramatic, as Kathy foud when she looks out into it:

The third tower looks even more dramatic from the opposite side of the canyon, where other tower ruins can be found:

The third site we visited was the Butler Wash Ruins, which was about a half-mile hike from the trailhead across a slickrock formation that was impressive in itself:

When we reached the trail's end, we were at an observation point on one side of the canyon.  At the head of the canyon were alcoves with the ruins:

The Butler Wash Ruin is a Pueblo III ruin that was built late in the Anasazi occupation of the area. Constructed in the 1200's, it is mostly Mesa Verde style construction, which is consistent with the Mesa Verde style pottery found in the site. The inhabitants likely farmed the wash bottom below and the broad open lands further down the wash. The ruins include three alcoves.  The largest alcove was the center of life for and was likely the only alcove that held sleeping rooms. This large deep alcove was laid out with four kivas in the front with a large flat plaza in front of them. These kivas are all built up from the ledge, not underground as typically found in Mesa Verde kivas. Three are round Mesa Verde Anasazi style while the fourth is square, showing Kayenta Anasazi influence. Researches say that it is not surprising to see both Mesa Verde (round) and Kayenta (square) style kivas here, since this Comb Ridge are is generally considered to be a rough dividing line between the two cultures' territories.  Behind the kivas are storage and sleeping rooms with the sleeping rooms generally to the front and storage to the back. 

Over the last few years, we've visited a variety of ancient pueblo sites, and had experience with the Mesa Verde and Chaco styles of construction.  However, this was our first introduction to the Kayenta tradition.  We're eager to learn more about Kayenta-style pueblos and their inhabitants as we continue this stay in Blanding, as well as our next stay in Chinle, Arizona near Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley.