Almost 1,000 years ago, a flourishing Native American village of people archaeologists call the Fremont was sprawled across the area that is now west Provo.
“There were large populations living in these valleys before the pioneers and even before the Ute,” said Dr. Michael Searcy, an anthropology professor at Brigham Young University and co-director of the current excavation at a digging site called the Hinckley Mounds.
The Fremont are estimated to have lived in the area from around 700 A.D. to 1300 A.D., where evidence suggests they farmed corn and hunted and gathered for other food.
The current excavation is part of BYU’s Archaeology Field School from May 1 to June 23, where graduate and undergraduate students can get hands-on experience with archaeology, which Searcy said is “fantastic” in the west Provo area.
The region has previously been excavated for more than a century by both professional and avocational archaeologists. During the ongoing dig, Searcy said some of the team’s biggest findings include animal remains such as bison bones, as well as arrowheads and pottery.
He noted that the area is relatively difficult to excavate, because sometimes, the students are relying only on subtle soil composition and color changes to date artifacts, rather than more exact dating methods like radiocarbon dating.
”So I tell them, ‘If you dig Fremont archaeology, you can do anything. Roman aqueduct? Easy,’” he said. “‘Mayan Temple? So easy.”
Urban sprawl likely burying similar artifacts
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Faculty and students from BYU's 2023 Archaeological Field School explore the remains of a 1,000-year-old Fremont village at the Hinckley Mounds in west Provo on Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
The current dig has no Indigenous involvement, Searcy said, noting that many tribes in Utah don’t affiliate with the Fremont people, though he said “there are probably definite ties between the Fremont and the Ute, Shoshone, Paiute, and others that moved into this area we think sometime in the 1400s.”
He added that whenever archaeologists find human remains, they are required to consult with the state’s physical anthropologist. None have been found in the current excavation, but remains were previously found in the area in 2015.
BYU student Mason Lee spends more than 40 hours a week helping out with the excavation. He is one of 21 BYU students involved in the dig, along with six students from Weber State University.
Lee recalled finding a ceramic recently and washing it off — which revealed a clear fingerprint with ridges.
“It was just that moment where I put my thumb into it and it fit like Cinderella’s shoe,” Lee said. “It was this connection between me and this person who’s been dead for 1,000 years that lived and died in this area.”
The ongoing excavation, as well as a previous one in 2015, is considered a “salvage project,” Searcy said. That’s because urban sprawl has recently swallowed up areas believed to contain artifacts like the ones his team is currently finding.
“We’re really trying to preserve as much as we can so that it doesn’t get lost,” Searcy said.
The Hinckley Mounds site in particular is owned by Provo resident John Hinckley, who lets the team access it. Before him, the land was owned by his father, G. Marion Hinckley, who granted BYU archaeology professors and students access to it beginning in the 1940s.
Searcy added there are probably similar sites under newly developed houses nearby, as well as under the runways at the nearby airport.
“But this is one of the last places where it’s either not inaccessible, or damaged, or totally destroyed,” he said.
Connecting with people ‘just like us’
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Scott Ure and Jacob Robinson examine burnt bone fragments as BYU's 2023 Archaeological Field School explores the remains of a 1,000-year-old Fremont village in west Provo on Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
Evidence suggests the Fremont also lived throughout central Utah, the eastern edge of Nevada and western Colorado. But in northern Utah, those who lived near modern-day west Provo would have had access to lots of locusts and green resources, and it seems they frequently fished, Searcy said.
“The largest number of bones we find here are fish,” Searcy said. “… We also found bone harpoons that were used to spear fish.”
The team has also found mussel shell deposits, Searcy said. The mussel is native to Utah Lake, but only forms in standing water, which he said may be evidence that flooding — like what Utah has seen this year — was something the Fremont dealt with, too.
Lee said it has been impactful to connect with the Fremont people through this excavation.
“They cared about the things that we cared about,” he said. “They were people just like us, with problems, aspirations and dreams, and to be able to connect with that in some kind of meaningful way is both personally fulfilling but also meaningful for science.”