Ancient History Close to Home: Nine Mile Canyon, Utah

Think you can’t find Ancient History close to you?  Feel you have to go to another country, or even continent, to see prehistoric ruins or rock art?  Not so!  Most places in the United States are located within a few hours of some Ancient History site.  Look around you and find a way to study Ancient History close to home.  Then you can plan a trip overseas, and see ancient sites there, if you want. 
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Last spring, we decided to make a day trip to Nine Mile Canyon in Central Utah.  The canyon (which is actually forty-six miles long) is called the world’s longest art gallery.  There are petroglyphs and building sites from at least three Native American cultures in the canyon--Great Basin Archaic (6000-500 BC), Fremont (AD 1-1300), and Ute (AD 1000/1300+).  It is located 80 miles southeast of Provo and northeast of Price via Wellington.  We didn’t even explore the side canyons, and yet we spent more than half the day at the sites along the main road.

The exciting thing about this site is that archaeologists don’t have enough information yet to answer questions like:

• Who exactly lived here, when, and for how long?
• Were these permanent or part-time settlements? 
• Did the people come and go in and out of the canyon?  Or did they stay put during drought and contention and acquire different habits and traditions from other people in the area?
• What caused them to leave?

Archaeologists are still in the process of exploration, study, and discovery. 

Come on a virtual tour with me, and you can decide for yourself if you want to explore Nine Mile Canyon, or another ancient area near you, in person.

​Geology and Nature

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