Best Time Keeper Waldo Wilcox knew there was trouble the moment he saw the mauled（受伤的)d

Best Time Keeper

Waldo Wilcox knew there was trouble the moment he saw the mauled(受伤的)deer carcass, not far from one of the meadows where his cattle grazed. His dogs, Dink and Shortie, sensed it too—mountain lion. He grabbed his pistol and a rope from his truck, and said, "let's get him". Then he headed up the mountainside, his hounds racing far ahead.

Wilcox moved in long strides up the rocky grade. Still, it took some time before he topped the summit. The big cat was not 50 yards in front of him, its fangs(尖牙)bared, cornered by the dogs on a massive sandstone bluff.

Wilcox gripped his gun. He hoped to take the mountain lion alive and sell it to a zoo. He'd done that before and made a tidy profit. Wilcox took quick aim, his pistol cracked, and there was a sudden silence as the animal fell limp to the ground.

It wasn't until the red dust had settled and Wilcox's pulse had slowed that he gazed around. What he saw stunned him. High on the bluff lay an archeological(考古学的)treasure trove(珍藏物)—large pieces of pottery, stone shelters that once housed whole families, and domed structures that had held wild grains harvested centuries before Europeans set foot in North America.

Wilcox made his discovery on the bluff almost 20 years ago—but it was not the first time he had found relics on his land. Since 1951, when his father bought the high-valley Range Creek ranch, a year had seldom passed in which Wilcox did not come upon some spot of archeological interest. Occasionally he stumbled across burial plots.

Native American Culture

For nearly half a century, he kept quiet about the riches, telling hardly anyone outside his immediate family what was hidden in the isolated valley 160 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. When he discovered a new site, Wilcox would note its location—then just let things be.

Now the secret of Range Creek is finally out. Four years ago, forced by time to give up ranching, Wilcox, 75, sold his beef-cattle property in a deal that ultimately put the land in state hands. Thanks to Wilcox's silence, the 4 200-acre ranch is one huge, untouched archeological site. Today, scientists from Utah's Division of State History and the University of Utah are busily cataloguing magnificent, previously unknown ruins on the property.

What the scientists are learning at Range Creek has already begun to shed light on one of the greatest mysteries of Native American history—the fate of the Fremont culture, which had thrived in Utah for almost 1 000 years, then vanished virtually over-night in the 1300s.

The very existence of the Fremont did not come to light until the late 1920s, when a Harvard University expedition discovered evidence of an ancient people who settled along the Fremont River in southern Utah. Farmers and hunter-gatherers who arrived in the region at about A. D. 400, the Fremont lived in one-room homes dug into the earth and finished off with stacked-stone walls and roofs made of reeds and mud. Carbon dating of corncobs found on the Wilcox ranch hinted that Range Creek was buzzing with activity from roughly A. D. 900 to 1100.

But right around the beginning of the 14th century, some great shift occurred. The drawings, pottery and structures particular to the Fremont culture ceased to be made—anywhere. Some experts guess that other peoples pushed Out the Fremont. Others speculate that some climatic event forced the Fremont to move south, where they may have integrated with other tribes.

A Living Monument

"In terms of history and archeological study, Range Creek is essential to the state," explains former governor Olene S. Walker. "It gives us a view into a period for which we have no written history." She is speaking primarily about the Fremont culture, but A World That Time Forgot. Even today, the valley resembles a world that time forgot.

A．Y

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C．NG