Anasazi Indian State Park

Anasazi Indian State Park is a state park and museum in Southern Utah featuring the ruins of an ancient Anasazi Village.

The Park

Established as a Utah state park in 1960, the six-acre Anasazi Indian State Park is open year-round, and features a visitor center, a museum with examples of Anasazi pottery and other artifacts, a museum store, an auditorium, and picnic areas. There is no camping. It is located in Boulder, Utah, at the edge of convert|11000|ft|m|sing=on tall Boulder Mountain.

The park is focused around the reconstructed ruins of an ancient Anasazi village, referred to as the Coombs Site, which is located directly behind the museum. There is a self-guided trail visitors can take through the village with interpretive signs explaining the various features of the village, and the culture of the people who once lived there.

The Village

The Coombs Site is the site of one of the largest Anasazi communities known to have existed west of the Colorado River. The name Anasazi, Navajo for “Ancient Ones,” describes the Pueblo culture that existed in the Four Corners area from about 1 AD to 1300 AD. This village is believed to have been occupied from 1160 AD to 1235 AD. As many as 250 people lived there.

The village is largely unexcavated, though there was a brief excavation during 1958 and 1959, conducted by the University of Utah as part of the Glen Canyon Dam Project. During that excavation, archeologists uncovered thousands of artifacts, and discovered a community of about 90 rooms divided into two separate one-story apartment complexes. An L-shaped building has been reconstructed and can be entered into by visitors. The cluster featured open shelters for working in the shade, storage pits, and adobe pit houses large enough for five or six residents. All together, about 100 structures have been found.

Evidence, such as singed structural building supports, suggest that the town was abandoned after a village-wide fire. There was also a serious drought occurring in the region during that time that may have also been a factor.

External links

* [http://www.utah.com/stateparks/anasazi.htm State of Utah Tourist Web Site]
* [http://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/anasazi/ Utah Department of Natural Resources Web Site]