Keywords

Fremont archaeology, anthropology, maize farming

Abstract

“Fremont” is a label archaeologists use for the northern con- temporaries of Ancestral Pueblo people. Fremont peoples lived mostly in what is now the state of Utah, in the eastern Great Basin and on the northern Colorado Plateau. Their range extended slightly beyond the modern borders of Utah. Sometime during the first few centuries A.D., people began growing maize (corn) in the region. The first farmers might have been immigrants from the south, or indigenous hunter-gatherers who incorporated maize into their diet; most archaeologists think evidence shows a combination of both patterns. Over the next several hundred years, people across the Fremont region became more sedentary (living in one place year-round), and they adopted material culture (pottery, archi- tecture, tools) appropriate to this more settled lifeway.

Original Publication Citation

2015 Introducing the Fremont. Archaeology Southwest Magazine 29(4):3-5.