The Utah Landscape and Prehistory

 

The Utah Landscape

Utah presents an unusually varied landscape with three major physiographic provinces extending into the state. The Rocky Mountain Province takes up a V-shaped section of northeastern Utah and includes the Uinta and Wasatch mountains. The Colorado Plateau Province dominates east central and southeastern Utah from the Uinta Basin south to Canyonlands and the high plateau country. Western Utah lies in the Basin and Range Province, an area of deserts as well as mountain ranges separated by broad valleys. Within these three provinces, Utah ranges in elevation from 2,350 feet above sea level in the southwest corner of the state to 13,528 feet on Kings Peak in the Uinta Mountains. Five major life zones, each with a distinctive community of plants, are found within that elevation range, from the sagebrush and juniper typical of the Sonoran desert to the meadow grass and moss of the alpine tundra.

Delicate Arch, Arches National Park

Utah's temperatures vary greatly with changing altitude and latitude. The mountains and elevated valleys are cooler, while the lower elevations and southern parts of the state have higher temperatures. The highest temperature officially recorded was July 5, 1985, in St. George, Utah 117 F. The lowest was recorded on February 1, 1985, at the uninhabited Peter's Sink in Logan Canyon -69 F.

Precipitation in Utah varies from an average of less than five inches in the Great Salt Lake Desert to more than 60 inches in the Wasatch Mountains. The average annual precipitation is between 10-15 inches per year.

 

Prehistory

Utah's prehistory is as diverse as its scenic topography, covering a period of more than 11,000 years. Archaeological sites have been identified in all corners of the state illustrating the ancient people of Utah were able to adapt to deserts, high mountains, badlands, and marshes.

The first people living in Utah are called the Paleoindians (11,000-8000 years ago) by archaeologists. The Paleoindians were hunters and gatherers who sometimes hunted now-extinct mammals like the mammoth. Paleoindian sites have been found across Utah but due to their age, they are very rare. Some Paleoindian camps along the shoreline of ancient Lake Gilbert have been identified by archaeologists reflecting Paleoindians' use of marsh environments. At about 8000 years ago, changes in weaponry styles and subsistence patterns mark the beginning of the Archaic period. During the Archaic, people were hunters and gatherers, and nomadic but they also lived in semi-permanent small villages and caves. During the Archaic (8000-2500 years ago), people made a variety of basketry for plant collecting and various stone spear and dart tips used in hunting. The atlatl, or spear thrower, was used from roughly 8000 to 2000 years ago in Utah. Danger Cave and Juke Box Cave near Wendover, Utah are two famous sites used during the Paleoindian and Archaic time periods.

Subsistence patterns began to slowly change around 2500 years ago. Corn and later beans and squash were introduced into Utah possibly from the south. Farming changed how people made a living. Across much of northern Utah, the Fremont (2500-600 years ago) adopted a farming lifestyle but they still heavily relied on hunting and gathering for much of their food. Further to the south, in the Four Corners region and across the southern portion of Utah, the Anasazi (2500-600 years ago) heavily relied on corn, beans and squash. The Anasazi had domesticated the turkey and it was also used as an important source of food and raw material. The Anasazi sometimes built multi-storied homes along cliff faces and around the heads of deep canyons. Cliff dwellings dating to over 700 years ago can be seen in southern Utah and in the Four-corners area

.Stronghold House , Hovenweep National Monument

Around AD 1300, the people we call Fremont and Anasazi are no longer visible in the archaeological record. Some areas were abandoned and new cultures moved into the region. The archaeological record changes and is most similar to what is seen for Archaic age sites. In many respects, people went back to a hunter and gatherer lifestyle.

 

The American Indians

At historic contact, Native American groups living in Utah included the Ute, Southern Paiute, Navajo, Goshute, Northern and Eastern Shoshone. The Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone speak different but related languages from a family known as the Numic Language Family. The Navajo speak a language that is in the Athapaskan Language Family.

The Ute, Goshute, Southern Paiute and Shoshone lived similar lifestyles by hunting, fishing and gathering wild plant foods. The pinyon nut was especially important to all of these groups. These groups now live in reservations in Utah, Colorado, Nevada and Idaho although prior to European settlement, they ranged all across the Great Basin and Inter-mountain West. Navajo culture during historic times was based upon herding sheep, goats, and cattle. More detailed information on the historic Native American peoples of Utah can be found in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 10: Southwest and Volume 11: Great Basin. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. 1986; edited by Warren L. D'Azevedo.

The state of Utah is named after the Ute tribe. The Ute once lived over much of Utah and all of western Colorado. In historic times, they ranged well onto the great plains of eastern Colorado into Nebraska and south into New Mexico. In historic times, there were at least 11 different bands of the Ute Tribe. Each band claimed their own territory but membership in a band was fluid. The Ute lived by hunting, fishing, gathering and trading with other Native American groups in the region. Housing consisted of brush structures and conical shaped tipi's made from animal skins. During the late 1800s, the Ute lost most of their lands and were restricted to reservations in southern Colorado and northeastern Utah

.Shoshone Indians with Chief Washakie, standing center front

The Paiute are divided into two groups: the Northern Paiute and the Southern Paiute. The Northern Paiute lived in what is now Oregon, California and Nevada. The Southern Paiute lived in southern Utah, southern Nevada, and northern Arizona. Hunting and gathering with some fishing was the main source of subsistence. Often, small mammals such as rabbits made up much of the protein in their diet. A Southern Paiute house might be made of brush and poles stacked in a conical shape. These are known as wickiups. Basketry was made by the Southern Paiute as was pottery. There are Paiute reservations in southern Utah and in Nevada.

The western deserts of Utah is the home of the Goshute. They are related to the western Shoshone groups and through intermarriage, to the Ute. The Goshute lived in the Great Basin as hunters and gatherers living in conical wickiups and similar structures. Two reservations in western Utah are now the home of the Goshute.

Idaho, eastern Oregon and northern Utah was the home of the Northern Shoshone. The Eastern Shoshone lived across western Wyoming, northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado. Shoshone subsistence revolved around hunting, gathering and fishing. Bison hunting was a important pursuit.

Herding sheep and goats was, and still is, the mainstay of many Navajo families. Southern Utah, northern Arizona, and northern New Mexico is the land of the Navajo; the largest Native American Tribe in the United States. Some scholars believe the Navajo migrated south into their current homeland sometime after A.D. 1300 where they lived as hunters and gatherers. In early historic times, the Navajo acquired sheep from the Spanish and they learned to weave from the Hopi. The Hogan is the traditional Navajo house.

 

The Exporers, Trappers, and Traders

Mexicans and Spaniards were the first known non-Indians to enter what is now the state of Utah. The recent discovery and translation of the journals of Juan Maria Rivera show that he led no less than two expeditions into the area of present day Utah in 1765, accomplishing the first white man sightings of Hovenweep and the Colorado River, which he reached on the second trip at the site of modern Moab. Twelve years later, in July 1776 just as the American Revolution was beginning in the East a 10-man exploration team left Santa Fe, New Mexico, under the leadership of two Franciscan priests, Dominguez and Escalante. They entered Utah from the east near the present town of Jensen, traversed the Uinta Basin, crossed the Wasatch Mountains via Diamond Fork and Spanish Fork canyons, and visited the Indian encampment at Utah Lake. Traveling south, they eventually forded the treacherous Colorado River and returned to Santa Fe in January 1777. Early snows had forced them to give up their attempt to reach Monterey, California.

Utahns are indebted to the Dominguez-Escalante expedition because of the detailed diary kept by Father Escalante which describes plant and animal life; geography; and the appearance, dress, food, and life ways-of the Utes and Paiutes. The Rivera journals, the Escalante diary, and the map made by Bernardo de Miera, who accompanied the Dominguez-Escalante party, are the first documents in Utah history.

Although there was no immediate follow-up to the historic Dominguez-Escalante expedition, traders continued to be interested in establishing new routes to California, and by the early 1800s trade between Santa Fe and the Indians in north-central Utah was fairly well established.

From 1807 to 1840 mountain men competing for fur explored vast areas of the American West, and their knowledge was eventually passed on to future settlements.

Jim Bridger

In the 1820s trappers explored most of Utah's rivers and valleys as well as some of the desert land. Jedediah Smith, one of the great explorers made several significant journeys through Utah and publicized South Pass in Wyoming, over which thousands of later immigrants traveled. Trapper Jim Bridger reported his sighting of the Great Salt Lake in 1824; Osborn Russell and a party of French-Canadian trappers wintered near present Ogden in 1840-41; and Miles Goodyear established Fort Buenaventura on the Ogden River in 1844-45. The explorations of other trappers including Peter Skene Ogden, Etienne Provost, John H. Weber, William H. Ashley, James P. Beckwourth, the Robidoux brothers, and Joseph R. Walker also contributed to knowledge of the Utah area. So did groups such as the Bartleson-Bidwell party whose wagons crossed Utah in 1841 and the Donner party who blazed a trail into the Salt Lake Valley in 1846 that the Mormons followed in 1847.

In the 1840s United States government explorers and settlers bound for California came into Utah. Among the most notable explorers of the West in this period was John C. Fremont who mapped trails and described the land and plant and animal life of the Great Basin.

 

The Mormon Settlement

When Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his brother Hyrum were assassinated at Carthage, Illinois, in June
1844, Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders decided to abandon Nauvoo, Illinois, and move west. Their exodus began February 4, 1846.

With the outbreak of the Mexican War, President James Knox Polk asked the Mormons for a battalion of men. Volunteers were recruited and the Mormon Battalion formed. During their famous march of 1846-1847 from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to San Diego, California, they forged a wagon route across the extreme Southwest. Their pay and their later explorations helped the pioneer settlers.

In April 1847 the pioneer company of Mormons was on its way from Winter Quarters, Nebraska, to Utah. The reports of Fremont and conversations with Father De Smet, a Jesuit missionary to the Indians, helped to influence their choice to head for the Great Basin. An advance party, including three African-Americans, entered Salt Lake Valley July 22, 1847, and the rest of the company on July 24. Planting and irrigating as well as exploration of the surrounding area began immediately.

Although the struggle for survival was difficult in the first years of settlement, the Mormons were better equipped by experience than many other groups to tame the harsh land. They had pioneered other settlements in the Midwest, and their communal religious faith underscored the necessity of cooperative effort. Basic industries developed rapidly, the city was laid out, and building began. Natural resources, including timber and water, were regarded as community property; and the church organization served as the first government. Settlement of outlying areas began as soon as possible. Bountiful, Farmington, Ogden, Tooele, Provo, and Manti were settled by 1850. Immigration had swelled the population to 11,380, half of whom were farm families. The typical family of 1850 consisted of two parents in their 20s or early 30s and three children. A leader was generally chosen by church authorities to head each settlement, and others were selected to provide basic skills for the new community. Small settlements were frequently forts with log cabins arranged in a protective square.

Between 1847 and 1900 the Mormons founded about 500 settlements in Utah and neighboring states. At the same time, missionaries traveled worldwide, and thousands of religious converts from many cultural backgrounds made the long journey from their homelands to Utah via boat, rail, wagon train, and handcart.

The Mormon village in Utah was to a degree patterned after Joseph Smith's City of Zion, a planned community of farmers and tradesmen, with a central residential area and farms and farm buildings on the land beyond. Life in these villages centered on the day's work and church activities. Educational facilities developed slowly. Music, dance, and drama were favorite group activities.

 

Brief History of Utah

Ron Rood and Linda Thatcher

http://www.utahhistorytogo.org/brhistory.html