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Exquisitely shaped nearly 1,000 years ago by Utah inhabitants from gray clay and decorated with bold geometric patterns in black paint, an ancient bowl has been discovered in pristine condition in southeastern Utah.
Participants in Loa-based Aspen Academy, a wilderness therapy group, contacted authorities after making the remarkable find earlier this month under a rock overhang in the northwest region of the Henry Mountains in Garfield County.
"There's not a chip or scratch on it," Craig Harmon, an archaeologist with the field office of the Bureau of Land Management in Richfield, said of the bowl, which is about 7 inches in diameter and 3½ inches deep. There are "just some little hairline stress fractures on the rim from drying. I'm just amazed it's in such good condition."
He believes the bowl, which exhibits Puebloan characters, was made around A.D. 1100 to 1200 by members of the Fremont culture who populated much of Utah at the time.
The wilderness therapy group discovered the bowl while trekking about 300 yards downhill from a settlement site, but Harmon has no idea how it ended up under the rock overhang in a remote and rugged area of the county.
"We'll probably never know how it got there," he said.
Harmon contacted Utah's Paiute tribe and the Zuni tribe in New Mexico for advice on what to do with the bowl, which is now secured in a vault in Richfield. He also sent letters to six other Southwest tribes asking for their input.
The bowl could end up in a museum, or even may be returned to where it was found.
Students and staff members who found it did exactly what everyone should do when they find an artifact on public land, BLM spokeswoman Erin Darboven said.
"It's especially commendable in light of what happened in Blanding a couple of years ago," Harmon added, referring to the federal indictments of several residents of the southeastern Utah town for looting artifacts on public land and selling them on the black market.
"I don't know who they are [the individuals who found the bowl], but if I did, I'd want to shake their hands," he said.
Gil Hallows, Aspen Academy director, said his staff is trained to report any artifact discoveries to authorities.
"We're very proud of them for resisting taking the artifact and leaving it where it was and reporting it to authorities," he said. "This was something significant."