THE ANCIENT BASKET MAKERS OF SOUTHEASTERN UTAH 



authorities on this subject, that I shall draw many of my 

 facts. 



Richard Wetherill, in writing of this region, says: 

 Gulch drains nearly all the territory southwest of the Elk moun- 

 tains, from the McComb Wash to the Clay Hills, about one thous- 

 and miles of territory. It is the most tortuous canon in the whole 

 of the Southwest, making bends from 200 to 600 yards apart, al- 



BURIAL CAVE OF BASKET MAKERS, GRAND GULCH, UTAH 



most the entire length, or for fifty miles, and each bend means a 

 The Canons cave or overhanging cliff ; all of those with an exposure 

 of Utah. to the sun had been occupied either for cliff-houses or as 

 burial places. The canon is from 300 to 700 feet deep and in 

 many places, toward the lower end, the bends are cut through by 

 Nature, making natural bridges. Under these bridges, in some 

 cases, are houses, and in such places are pictographs in the greatest 

 profusion; the painted ones of the Basket Maker, with the later 

 ones of the Cliff Dweller cut or incised in the rock without paying 

 any attention to previous ones. Ingress and egress are very 

 difficult, there being not more than five or six places where even 



