The following is the first in a three-part series about indigenous people in the Park City area for the Park City Museum.
A few years ago, I found myself staring at a plaque at our charming local history museum. Other than a brief mention in a nearby narrated history video, however, this small sign is the museum’s only reference to indigenous people in the local area. I decided to dive deeper to better understand Park City’s history before there was a Park City. What I discovered surprised me: Our mountain town is rich in connection with Native Americans.
Paleo Indians
After the last ice age ended 16,000 years ago, the Bering Land Bridge created a pathway for people to enter North America from Asia. Up to 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, evidence shows that North America was occupied by Paleo Indians.
These earliest Americans were nomadic hunter-gatherers whose typical prey included sloths, bison and mammoths. It is likely that Paleo Indians camped along the shores of lakes and streams.
Interestingly, the Utah climate during this period was cooler and wetter (and the Great Salt Lake was not salty yet). It is unclear if the mountains of Summit County were an attractive or accessible seasonal hunting spot for Paleo Indians. The existing physical evidence of Paleo Indians suggests they did live in caves along the Great Salt Lake Desert.
Archaic Period
The period between 8,500 and 2,500 years ago contains ample evidence of indigenous Americans in northern Utah, including Summit County. The Archaic peoples were hunter-gatherers who lived on the available plants and animals in Utah. With warmer and drier temperatures during this period, it is likely that the Wasatch Mountains became more accessible.
While only a small number of caves and sites have been excavated, evidence in the Hogup Cave in northwestern Utah, for example, shows that they hunted several large animals still present today in the Wasatch Mountains, including the pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bison and bighorn sheep.
Some sites, like Swallow Shelter at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet in the Goose Creek Mountains of western Box Elder County, show a community more dependent on mountain sheep and marmots, along with prickly-pear pads and the seeds of wild grasses. While there is little physical record available to depict how the Archaic people lived, they appear to be some of the earliest known inhabitants of northern Utah.
Approximately 2,500 years ago (about the time that ancient Greece formed its democracy), something happened that caused the population of Archaic peoples to plummet in the area. Interestingly, that time period (roughly starting in 500 B.C.) corresponds to a global drop in temperature and precipitation. This drought affected much of western North America and was one of several to impact the region over the next thousand years.
Perhaps the Archaic peoples migrated to different geographies in search of more reliable food and more hospitable weather. Their shift from hunting and gathering to a reliance on maize coincidentally occurred at about this time, suggesting a possible intentional change to more predictable sources of food.
Fremont Culture
Then, about 1,500 years ago (around 500 A.D.), a new people appeared in Utah. Known as the Fremont, they appeared to have a more complex and specialized society, producing pottery and structures made of stone or adobe. Evidence suggests that the Fremont people had a substantial footprint in northern Utah, including around the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake.
While this evidence shows permanent or semi-permanent villages, they “also used temporary campsites while hunting or gathering food in the mountainous areas like Summit County,” according to anthropologist Steven R. Simms. To be clear, that suggests that at around the time of the fall of the western Roman Empire (~500 A.D.), the Fremont were seasonally present in the greater Park City area.
Around 750 years ago (1200 A.D.) and much like the archaic peoples, the Fremont people vanished from the current historical record of Utah. While climate change may also have played a role, some researchers have suggested that the arrival of the Shoshonean people in northern Utah caused or contributed to the decline.
Next week will continue the conversation on native peoples in the Park City area.
The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled “The Land is Alive: Indigenous Views on Nature,” given by the former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, Darren Parry, on Wednesday, May 7, from 5-6 p.m. at their Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.
Ella Ehrich, a history-loving senior at Park City High School, is a Park City Museum researcher.