BLM Information on Junction Ruin

Welcome to Junction Ruin.
The site was named because of its location at the confluence of Grand Gulch and Kane Gulch. It dates to Basketmaker III times, though there is little evidence that remains. Pueblo II and III times are better represented. Junction Ruin is an extensive site consisting of three levels. The lower level contains 28 features, the middle includes 14, and the upper alcove, which is now inaccessible, consists of 17 features.

The function of individual structures may not always be apparent, but storage cysts and structures, habitation rooms, kivas, and defensive structures have all been identified at this site. There is also a strong representation of varying architectural types here, including both wet and dry laid adobe masonry and jacal, or wattle and daub (mud plastered over a mesh of sticks).

Specific structures like storage cysts and other above-ground structures were used to store food (corns, beans, and squash) or water. Storage structures tend to be smaller with smaller entryways, which would have been closed using a rock or door slab. At some of the storage units here, you can still see the lintel across the inside top of the doorway, which prevented the door slabs from falling inward. Storage units generally lack any soot and smoke blackening.

Habitation rooms tend to be larger and have thicker walls and a larger entrance than storage units. The walls and ceilings are typically blackened from smoke and soot, indicating that the Ancestral Puebloans made fires inside for warmth or cooking. Ventilators and deflectors are also generally present as a means of ventilating smoke from the structure, similar to a modern chimney.

Three of the features on the main lower level are kivas. They would have had roof beams and roofing material such as juniper bark, and an opening would have been present to enter from the roof into the kiva by use of a ladder. The ventilator shafts, small niches, benches, and plaster are still visible.

The defensive structures at this site have been identified as the entire upper level. To the left of the site and midway up is a ladder platform, which seems to have provided the only access to this upper level. If you look closely above this platform, you will see the remains of a portion of the original ladder, which has now been bolted into the wall for stabilization purposes.

The red mortar remnants on the ceilings and walls to the back of the alcove indicate that there had been a wall or previous structure there which has since fallen.

The rock art at the site includes both petroglyphs (pecked images) and pictographs (painted). There are numerous positive and negative handprints using white and red paint. Yellow and orange abstracts, spirals, and anthropomorphs are also present.

The large rock in the middle of the lower level contains many grinding areas, stone manos to grind corn, while many of the grooves may have been used for sharpening three grinding tools.

Some of the artifacts collected from this site by early archeologists included ceramics, ground stone, lithics, bone tools, and perishable artifacts including sandals, cordage, textiles, basketry, corn, squash, wood, hide, and coprolites. Information can be gained from these artifacts now and in the future with new and updated scientific technology.

The site was stabilized in 1965 and again in 1984. Careful site visitation helps in keeping this site from further deterioration. The rock art was documented in 1982 and was part of a research program in conjunction with the BLM and Earthwatch.

BLM Turkey Pen Site Closure Information
Temporary restriction of access to Turkey Pen and other archeological sites in upper Grand Gulch

April 18th, 2022

Turkey Pen is an archeological site located down the Kane Gulch trail in the Grand Gulch Wilderness Study Area.

In March 2022, BLM archeologists documented significant erosion and damage to cultural resources at Turkey Pen and other archeological sites in upper Grand Gulch caused by increased visitor use.

Turkey Pen is part of a broader cultural landscape that is sacred to sovereign Tribal Nations and Indigenous people of the southwest. The Bears Ears cultural landscape, and all archeological sites within it, was identified as a unique object in the Monument Proclamation.

To prevent erosion from irreversibly damaging sensitive cultural resources and ensure its proper care and management in accordance with the Antiquities Act of 1906, the BLM will temporarily restrict access to Turkey Pen and other archeological sites in upper Grand Gulch.

Turkey Pen can still be viewed with binoculars from the canyon bottom.

For more information, please contact the Monticello Field Office at (435) 587-1500 or visit the Kane Gulch Ranger Station from 8am to 12pm, March 1st – June 15th and September 1st – October 31st.

BLM Info On The Site
Welcome to Split Level Ruin
This site was named for the bi-level structure before you. Including the beautiful split-level structure, 18 other structures have been recorded by archaeologists on this level, with six more structures in the inaccessible upper alcove. Additionally, an extensive middens (trash deposit) downslope from the main site area has been identified and recorded.

The Split Level site is believed to have been occupied during the Pueblo II–Pueblo III Period (900–1300 AD). However, there are rock images and artifacts found at the site which indicate an earlier Basketmaker occupation. Archaeologists estimate the population of the Split Level Ruin during Pueblo times to be from 30 to 40 people.

Dating of occupation for the site was done in 1974 when several beams found within the structures were used for dendrochronologic (tree ring) dating. The oldest dates are around 925 AD, while the latest core sample date was around 1255 AD. The dates are approximate because the outside rings of the beams were often weathered and difficult to interpret, but still give us a framework to understand when the site was occupied.

There are three kivas at the Split Level site, identified as partially underground structures that once had roofs made of log beams covered with willows, bark, and, finally, plastered with mud.

There is a structure thought to have acted as habitation rooms with a kiva just below and a small storage structure attached at the upper north end. On the east side of the rooms is a small structure containing some small rock slabs forming a three-sided box-like structure that may have been used for grinding corn.

Other smaller masonry structures at this site, which appear blackened by fire, were probably used as habitation rooms. The smaller structures with no fire-blackened walls, situated along the back wall of the site, were probably used to store crops.

It is thought that the inaccessible structures on the ledges above may have been built for defensive purposes. It is possible that during the prolonged drought of the late Pueblo Period, with poor crops and little food, intra-tribal or intra-family strife became a problem.

Some rock imagery can be found on the large slabs located east of the split-level structure and north of the trail. It includes shield-like figures, concentric circles, spirals, pawprints, handprints, bighorn sheep, and birds.

The archaeological sites of Grand Gulch have sacred spiritual value for the descendants of the Ancestral Puebloans: the Hopi, the Zuni, and the Rio Grande pueblos, and should be treated with care and visited with respect.

Welcome to "Perfect Kiva" in Bullet Canyon (formally Graham Canyon). You are standing at one of the most recent sites to be occupied on Cedar Mesa and one the first to be excavated, if not the first. Archaeologists have established a chronology for the prehistoric people of the Southwest that lists Archaic (6500 B.C. to 1500 B.C.), Basketmaker (1500 B.C. to A.D. 700), Pueblo (A.D. 750 to 900), Pueblo II (A.D. 900 to 1150), Pueblo III (A.D. 1150 to 1300), Pueblo IV (A.D. 1300 to 1600), and Pueblo V (A.D. 1600 to present). Some of the rock art present at "Perfect Kiva" indicates that the site was first established during the Basketmaker period. The structures you see now are from the Pueblo II and III periods. The first recorded or documented discovery of the site occurred in 1891.

The Navajo call the people that inhabited the Cedar Mesa area the "Anasazi". Many decedents, the Hopi in northeastern Arizona, the Zuni in west central New Mexico, and the Pueblos along the Rio Grande in New Mexico prefer that they are called Ancestral Puebloans. The Hopi refer to them as Hisatsinom. The oral traditions of the Hopi tell of many migrations among their ancestors in the American Southwest. The Hopi believe that these clans left markers through pictographs and petroglyphs to show that they had been at these places or performed certain ceremonies. Many archaeologists also agree with the Hopi migration beliefs. They believe that these migrations took place during three distinct time phases with two to three hundred years in between. These periods are approximately A.D. 200 to 400, A.D. 650 to 725, and A.D. 1060 to 1270.

EARLY EXPLORATION AT "PERFECT KIVA"
Charles McLoyd and Charles Cary Graham of Durango, CO organized the first expedition into Grand Gulch for the purpose of archaeological excavations in January of 1891. Many people feel that these early expeditions by McLoyd, Graham, and others like Richard Wetherill were primarily hunting missions with no archeological training. One has to remember that archeology was a very new field/science at the time and that very few standards had been established.

Before McLoyd and Graham could begin excavating in Grand Gulch and its many side canyons, they first had to find a way to get their horses and supplies down into the canyon bottom. To do this they established a trail into Bullet Canyon a few miles above "Perfect Kiva" on the south-facing canyon side using rock cribbing. This must have been a tremendous amount of work, but work that would have been considered completely worthwhile once they discovered pristine sites like "Perfect Kiva" and "Jailhouse". In the crude field notes that still exist from the McLoyd and Graham expedition, they labeled "Perfect Kiva" Cave #1 and "Jailhouse" Cave #2. This suggests that these might have been the first two sites that the men excavated if their system was in sequential order. Many of these early explorers left their signatures in charcoal or bullet lead on the alcove's walls and rocks. Some of these signatures can be seen here at "Perfect Kiva".

The Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project (1986 to 1990) used these signatures of explorers to trace and confirm the early routes of their expeditions. They proved to be a valuable insight into what people associated with the project have termed "reverse archaeology", so please respect and do not touch these valuable signatures. It is a well-known fact that hundreds of artifacts and human remains were sold and shipped to museums throughout the United States, some even to Sweden. Although many of the museums have known the collections were from the Grand Gulch / Cedar Mesa area, it has not been known from which exact site location the artifacts were originally found. The Wetherill-Grand Gulch Project succeeded in establishing the location of many artifacts to specific sites, thus the term "reverse archaeology" or working from original notes, and photographs back to locate the site.