| Description |
Excavations at Median Village, in Southwestern Utah revealed a complex of dwellings, one storage structure and other phenomena radiocarbon dated to between A. D. 900 + 100. The unusual uniformity of the artifact assemblage fro the site together with the virtual absence of Snake Valley corrugated pottery and quadrilateral pit dwellings are evidence that Median Village cannot be assigned to a generalized Sevier Fremont or Western Fremont Culture which fails to take regional and temporal variation into account. A system of regional variants and local phases is therefore proposed for the whole of Fremont culture, with the phases having a temporal as well as a geographic component. Five regional variants, Uinta Fremont and San Rafael Fremont in the eastern part of the Fremont area, and Great Salt Lake Fremont, Sevier Fremont and Parowan Fremont in western Utah and eastern Nevada are defined. Criteria used for definition include1) presence or absence of material culture traits, 2) relative percentage of traits, and 3) settlement pattern and economic orientation. Phases are distinguished for local areas, according to the same set of criteria, where sufficient comparative data and controlled dating permit the recognition of local cultural change. Cultural boundaries between regional variants are not, for the most part, well-defined and cultural transitions are gradual. It is also probable that boundaries were not stable through time. Developments within each of the regional variants were not synchronous and no single beginning and no single beginning or ending date will fit all of Fremont Culture. A distinctive Fremont pattern can be recognized by A. D. 400 to 500 in the Great Salt Lake variant, and by A. D. 650 in the Uinta variant, but not until about A.D. 700 in the case of the San Rafael and even later in the Sevier and Parowan variants. Uinta Fremont does not seem to have persisted until after about A. D. 950 while abandonment of the rest of the Fremont area did not take place until after A. D. 1300. Fremont culture is seen as a unique pattern with its own set of traditions, deriving largely from a regionally differentiated Desert Archaic base to which was added before A. D. 500, a horticultural village or farmstead component whose origin was in the west central New Mexico - east central Arizona area. Subsequent to the introduction of horticulture, Fremont culture developed without important influence from the South west until the rise of the great Anasazi centers about A. D. 900. After this time, Anasazi influence became more marked, giving to Fremont culture, especially the Parowan and San Rafael variants, an Anasazi cast that obscured hundreds of years of indigenous development. |
