Last week while out exploring somewhere west of where I work, I came across a white mark on a stone in a rock faced ledge. I almost wish now that I hadn't noticed it, but because of prior experience I knew that particular mark showed the location of an ancient tomb. I found at least 4 tombs in that rock face. They were skillfully closed up and could have easily gone unnoticed. As I say, I almost wish I hadn't known what they were. I am not a grave robber, and I don't have much sympathy for treasure hunters who use archeology as an excuse for opening other people's graves in the name of science. I don't see a difference between opening a grave that is ten years old and a grave that is a thousand years old.
I left the graves as I found them without touching the stones that sealed the entrance. Then this week, I went in a different direction, not having any business to take me back to the grave sites, and what did I come across but another mark on the rocks where I was climbing. As I walked along the saddle of rocky hill, and the narrow valley beyond it I kept coming across the markings on the rock, even though by that time I didn't want to see them. There are easily hundreds of ancient graves out there. It would seem that the ancient people who lived there must have used that side of the valley as their cemetery and I didn't care to be walking over people's graves. I don't know how the ancient people would have viewed my sight seeing but I don't care to be disrespectful.
I could have simply walked away and found other places to explore, except that in the very first site I had come across that day, the tomb had been opened and there were bones strewn around the area. I am guessing, but it appeared that someone long ago had opened the tomb to look for treasure. Of course there was no treasure, these were people who farmed and hunted and gathered and had nothing that we would consider treasure. Instead of putting the grave back together in a decent manner, it had been left open and strewn about. Now I have been told that if you find human remains it is an obligation to notify law enforcement. So let me state here that it is my opinion these were human bones but that I am not a medical doctor, and I didn't take the bones to a laboratory to be checked for DNA. so I have no proof but my own opinion that they were human bones, and having no proof of the fact, I feel no obligation to notify some government entity who might feel obligated to remove all those hundreds of ancient people from there graves and put them in boxes in the basement of some dusty museum basement.
What I did instead was with the help of some young men in the program where I work, hike back to the site, and with the deepest respect used gloved hands to gently gather the strewn bones and place them back in the crevice from where they'd been taken. Then with the help of the same young men, we rocked up the wall that had previously covered the remains, and made it look as good as non professional rock workers could.
I don't pretend to know how the ancient people felt about what we tried to do, and there are no descendants of the people to ask or notify, but I felt better about leaving the place a bit better than we found it. I don't plan to go wandering there again. That chapter's closed and I'm not planning to teach others about recognizing the marks on the rocks that designate a tomb.
The ancient inhabitants here are known as the Fremont people. DNA testing has shown them to be closely related to the Pueblo people such as the Hopi. They are properly known now along with the "Anasazi" as "Ancestral Puebloan" I think that's fairly accurate, the tools I find are for hunting and working rather than for warfare. They appear to have been a peaceful people. Some may say I did wrong today, some may say I did well. In the end I answer to my own conscience, and I feel like it was a respectful and right thing to do.
Michael Edgar Porter
Looks to me like a beautiful masonry job, well done;)
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