Area students, teachers tackle Anasazi mysteries

Carson City and Douglas County high school teachers and students are helping to map and excavate a site once inhabited by a mysteriously vanished Native American people.

The group joined colleagues from Las Vegas, Fallon and Utah on June 11 to begin studying an Anasazi Indian pueblo site in Utah's Zion National Park. Archaeologist Dr. Paul Buck of the Desert Research Institute, sponsor of the dig, leads the project, which continues until July 1.

"The Anasazi were the prehistoric occupants of the entire Southwest," Buck said. "We hope to add some more data on how they lived and why they disappeared."

Buck explained that the archaeological experience "exposes teachers and students first-hand to science. This takes them out of the classroom and shows them how science really operates."

Participants from Carson City's alternative Pioneer Opportunity High School are teachers Micki Vetrie and Paul Murphy and students Alysia Brown, Daryl Smith and 2000 graduate Robert Slater.

Participants from Douglas High School are teachers Karen Heine and Hal Starratt and students Chad Cooper, Andrew Johnson, Bonnie Lee and Cicely Williams.

Participants were chosen through a competitive application process and have been paid a stipend.

Living in camp conditions and working in temperatures that have reached 114 degrees, participants have uncovered pueblo rooms, learned to classify pottery artifacts and considered the Anasazi reliance on wild versus cultivated food.

Buck said crop failure caused by severe drought likely contributed to the disappearance of Anasazi civilization.

Team members are enjoying their fieldwork.

"Things are going really well," said Vetrie. "We're trying to find living quarters right now. We've also visited two Anasazi sites that are already excavated."

For Slater, this foray into archaeology gets him in touch with his heritage.

"I thought it would be interesting to learn more about Native American peoples because I'm Native American."

Team members will analyze the results of their research in the fall and will prepare reports of their findings.