Until he became famous, Waldo willcocks spent most of his life in a remote valley in Utah, 15 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. He has a 4,2-acre land in Shuya area, which is a wilderness with a rock wall as high as 1, feet. The ranch winds along Range Creek for 12 miles, passing through the foothills of bushes, lush meadows and alpine forests. Waldo's parents, Pearl and Ray willcocks, bought this property in 1951. Three generations of willcocks will endure the cold winter, hot summer, periodic drought and bears in Ranch Creek Canyon. During this time, they have been trying to ignore the prehistoric Indian remains all over their land. The pit house was half dug and the roof collapsed, dotted with the bottom of the valley and the surrounding hills. Arrows, beads, ceramic fragments and stone fragments are scattered all over the floor. Human bones are sticking out of the hanging rocks, and hundreds of strange human figures with tapering limbs and strange protrusions on their heads are chiseled on the cliff wall. The family kept silent about this mysterious world. In particular, Waldo became an enthusiastic guardian. He drove away the curious locals, who knew all the cultural relics.

Then, in 21, willcocks, in his 7s, quietly sold his property to a non-profit public land trust fund for $2.5 million, and then federal and state agencies helped arrange for the land to be awarded to Utah. The archaeologist was surprised when he called to visit the site. The site is not only vast, but also well-preserved: the pit houses are intact, there are no graffiti or bullet holes on the rock paintings, and the barns are filled with corncobs from thousands of years ago.

Scientists lost no time in setting up a research camp. Kevin Jones, an archaeologist from Utah, said, "There are almost no sites in the continental United States that have not been excavated and destroyed to a great extent." . The researchers soon realized that they were lucky enough to enter a constellation of small villages 1, years ago. These small villages belonged to mysterious fremont people, highly mobile hunters and farmers. Most of them lived in Utah from 2 to 13, and then disappeared like Anasazi who lived on the cliff, while Anasazi and their contemporaries lived further south. Archaeologists lived in Range Creek. In a report by the Associated Press in June, 24, they described the archaeological wealth and eccentric landlords who kept secrets for decades. Willcocks became a sensation overnight, and was portrayed as a heroic cowboy in news reports from Salt Lake City to Sydney, Australia. He once kept vigil on a magical time capsule. "willcocks boasted to a reporter," It's like being the first white man, just like I always have been. " . Archaeologists' research adds mystery to this place. Jones was quoted as saying that Range Creek was called a "national treasure" and its discovery was similar to "finding a Van Gogh in your grandmother's attic". Another praised it as "one of the most important archaeological collections in North America." The excitement of

lies in the hope that Range Creek can help explain what happened in fremont. Along the bottom of the canyon, the traces of the big village show a prosperous settlement, while the pit houses and granaries built on the cliff show a place to defend against retreat. "Jones said," We have seen some places where people live on the edge ridge 9 to 1 feet from the valley floor, which means that if you want to get a pot of water, you have to send people hiking and then come back. These people are a little scared. They are obviously trying to protect their food, not mice.

The research in Range Creek may help to explain why agriculture suddenly stopped in most parts of southwest China seven centuries ago, prompting tribes to give up their ancestor Pueblo. Over the years, experts have suggested that war, drought, disease and religious unrest may be the causes of population outflow. "Most interested in their food in multiple places. Jones said, "You may lose some of them, but at least if another person is involved, they only have some." . When we climbed higher, 54-year-old Jones and husky pointed out that there were several adobe granaries, which were molded into small cracks with red clay and almost disguised as high sandstone cliffs. There is evidence that people in fremont used rough ladders or made toes on rocks to reach them. Willcocks said that he never tried to reach the cliff barn.

willcocks turned his attention to a narrow crack in the big wall in front of us. "See the hole behind the rock? I bet you 1 to 1 dollars that if you dig under the stone, you will find a dead Indian. I asked willcocks how he knew. " Because there are stones there, on the top of the tomb. You will find him hunched like a newborn baby.

"well, we won't test your hypothesis by in-depth research," Jones said. Nothing makes archaeologists more nervous than finding human remains on * * * land. This usually leads to a federal review, requiring researchers to notify tribes that may claim that the remains are the remains of ancestors. Tribal concerns about possible blasphemy may stop the research. Willcocks went on to say that Jones looked as if he wished he were on another cliff. But the old rancher is just getting started. "You can't find anything of value in the grave. I have seen some of them dug up. I think these Indians are so poor that they go to a happy hunting ground after their death. There is no need to take anything they have. When the story of Range Creek first appeared in the news media, local tribes, such as the northern Utes who claimed to have ties with fremont people, were angry that archaeologists had made them ignorant of the site. Since then, researchers and tribal leaders have almost settled their differences. Nevertheless, Metcalfe reluctantly told me that archaeologists had found five groups of human remains in or near the pasture. He said that the tribe had been informed and the researchers had not touched the remains, just as they wanted to analyze them. Although willcocks once showed me a set of eroded bones and a skull partially buried a quarter of a mile away from his hometown, he said that he had never dug any graves himself: "When I was a child, my father told me,' We own this land, but we don't recognize them as Indians.

Archaeologists don't like the word "Fremont", but they have been insisting on it since the 192s, when Noel mors, an anthropology student at Harvard University, recorded "unique unpainted black or gray pottery", which is a "unique moccasin type," exquisite clay figurines "and" rich hieroglyphics of different types "along the fremont River in south-central Utah. Some scholars believe that fremont is a close relative of Anasazi, or "the ancestral Pueblo"-a term that contemporary Native Americans prefer. ("Anasazi" is said to be the word "ancient enemy" in Navajo) Others think that they developed from a unique desert culture established before Anasazi. Until recently, researchers believed that when the climate dried up, the fremont River had dried up. " For a long time, the simplest answer was the drought in 13 AD. But people in fremont have experienced similar droughts in the past. Another view is that drought, population pressure and invasion make the life of fremont people unsustainable. Utes, a hunter-gatherer tribe, may have immigrated to this area from California at the same time that fremont people began to retreat to the cliff, and the food books may become ugly.

Archaeologists also infer that the war between fremont people broke out during this period. "You know, if your family is starving to death, if you push corn planting to the limit and you only get a quarter of the corn to spend a winter in Utah, then it seems more and more like a better choice for you to go in and help your neighbors," Metcalfe said. Even from their rock art, life in fremont is very dangerous. Perhaps the most unforgettable rock painting I saw in Range Creek was an inverted portrait with a barrel-shaped head, or tail, or * * *. It is red and carved on the rock at the bottom of the cliff. It may depict a Fremunt falling down and dying.

The only thing that researchers know for sure is that by around 135 AD, all physical ornaments calling for Fremunt's unique sandals, baskets and pottery disappeared from archaeological records. It's possible that people in Fremunt just moved out. Scientists have recently discovered the potential evidence of stoves and houses in fremont, which can be traced back to around 15. They are located in a tributary of the Green River in northwest Colorado, 75 miles north of Ranch Creek. Barlow and others want to know whether this culture has changed from farming to full-time hunting and gathering. Metcalfe said, "When you become a hunter-gatherer again, you won't stay in one place for long." You will turn your attention to archaeologists. Material culture will be very different, but it may be exactly the same person.

Just like the story of fremont, the story of Range Creek is complicated. First of all, the canyon is not completely primitive. Fur hunters arrived at the end of the 19th century, when they also started herding cattle. A farmer named Clarence Pirin found eleven clay figurines made in fremont. Later, he donated some of them to the nearby College of Eastern Utah Historical Museum in Price, where they are now displayed as "pilling statues".

The willcocks family has also done some collection work for many years. If I see an arrow, I will pick it up. "I won't lie to you or anyone," Waldo willcocks said. "I don't have much. Jeanie Zhan Sen, willcocks's niece, said that people at home often found cultural relics. In 1999, Ellen Sue Turner, an archaeologist from Texas, visited the ranch, and willcocks's wife Julie showed her some cultural relics, including fremont sandals, a jar, an arrow and a millstone. (Turner wrote about her visit in staa.org/fremont/index.html) Steve Gerber, the official historian of the Lanci Creek Archaeological Research Project, said that the willcocks couple "really worked hard to protect this place" and that his father owned a ranch, adding: "It doesn't mean that they didn't take anything, nor that those people didn't take anything before. For scientists, the value is that they didn't dig holes.

"I've been to many places, and I'm confident that these places haven't appeared in 1 years," Renee Barlow said that many sites we recorded and cultural relics are still falling. "There are too many cultural relics, and less than 1% of the pastures have been investigated since the investigation began in 22. Jerry Spangler, an archaeologist in Utah who works in Range Creek, said, "Waldo has forgotten more sites than any of us in our lifetime." "KDSP" Meanwhile, the legend of willcocks continues to grow, and he continues to win awards and honors for his management in Range Creek. Less well known is that although willcocks sold the property, he retained the right to exploit underground mineral or energy deposits, including oil and gas. He said that he did not rule out the possibility of leasing these deposits to natural gas developers. This prospect frightened some archaeologists.

when willcocks and I were driving through the old pasture, we passed two hikers. They were about a mile away from the gate, and their car stopped there, so willcocks stopped to give them a ride. When middle-aged tourists see willcocks, they are as dazzled as two teenagers see their favorite rock star. ""You are a hero, "one of them gushed. Willcocks shrugged and smiled.