The Cultural Heritage of the Great Sage Plain - The Achaeology Channel - Video

This latest video from TAC takes us to the American South West, and in particular, the Great Sage Plain, described thus...

Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, a vast plateau streaked with numerous canyons stretches from Cortez, Colorado, northwestward into Utah. A productive agricultural region today, the Great Sage Plain displays numerous ruins of an ancient civilization that puzzled the earliest European explorers but echoes today in its living Native American descendants.

For the past hundred years, archaeologists and Native people have collaborated to paint the picture and tell the story of the vibrant culture that once thrived here. The Anasazi Heritage Center of the Bureau of Land Management produced this film to share that story.

Apart from showing us some spectacular scenery and fascinating archaeological sites dotted across the arid landscape, this video widens its horizons by relating the history of archaeology in the region, which includes a narrative on how it first came to the attention of explorers over a century ago, which archaeological practices came into being, and how in the modern day, researchers are helped by insights gleaned from living descendants and the oral history that still survives. Indeed, it is noted that the oral traditions are as much in need of preservation as the ancient sites and artefacts themselves.

If you want to keep up to date with archaeology in this part of the world, the Center For Desert Archaeology not only have a great website, but also send out a very useful newsletter every few days, archives of which can be found here.

image by bob the hiker Flickr photostream