Steven R. Simms is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and retired living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He conducted archaeological field work across the United States and in the Middle East for over 45 years. His areas of specialty are the prehistory of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau, human behavioral ecology, and archaeological method and theory. Simms has authored over 100 scientific publications, technical reports, and monographs. His books, Ancient Peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau was published in 2008, and the award-winning Traces of Fremont: Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah was published in 2010 (Society for American Archaeology Book award public audience category and Utah Book Award nonfiction). He has directed over 60 archaeological research projects, most in the context of Cultural Resource Management law and regulations. He served as President of the Great Basin Anthropological Association and editor of the journal Utah Archaeology, and is a Fellow of the Utah Professional Archaeological Council. He served on the Government Affairs Committee and as annual meeting Program Chair of the Society for American Archaeology. Member of the Register of Professional Archaeologists. He served on numerous government committees including the Utah Governors committee to draft the Utah version of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. He served as an expert witness for the Bureau of Land Management in the case of Spirit Cave Man, Nevada.
A Field Study for the U.S. Forest Service, Manti LaSal NF to Evaluate Vandalism to Archaeological... more A Field Study for the U.S. Forest Service, Manti LaSal NF to Evaluate Vandalism to Archaeological Sites in Allen Canyon, San Juan County, Utah (part of Bears Ears region).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014
Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses a... more Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses about its cultural origin and meaning, but it is notoriously difficult to date numerically. Barrier Canyon-style (BCS) pictographs of the Colorado Plateau are among the most debated examples; hypotheses about its age span the entire Holocene epoch and previous attempts at direct radiocar-bon dating have failed. We provide multiple age constraints through the use of cross-cutting relations and new and broadly applicable approaches in optically stimulated luminescence dating at the Great Gallery panel, the type section of BCS art in Canyon-lands National Park, southeastern Utah. Alluvial chronostratigra-phy constrains the burial and exhumation of the alcove containing the panel, and limits are also set by our related research dating both a rockfall that removed some figures and the rock's exposure duration before that time. Results provide a maximum possible age, a minimum age, and an exposure time window for the creation of the Great Gallery panel, respectively. The only prior hypothesis not disproven is a late Archaic origin for BCS rock art, although our age result of A.D. ∼1-1100 coincides better with the transition to and rise of the subsequent Fremont culture. This chronology is for the type locality only, and variability in the age of other sites is likely. Nevertheless, results suggest that BCS rock art represents an artistic tradition that spanned cultures and the transition from foraging to farming in the region.
Poster Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2010
Large excavations in Clear Creek Canyon in the 1980s provided for the first time
a sense of the s... more Large excavations in Clear Creek Canyon in the 1980s provided for the first time a sense of the scale of Fremont sites yielding large numbers of residential and storage structures. Dozens of similar sites are known, but little was known about the sizes of those occupations. Historically, Fremont tends to be portrayed monolithically as limited to hamlets and farmsteads. The work at Clear Creek Canyon showed the presence of large villages of at least 100 people. A number of large Fremont villages show repeated pulses of occupation. The occupations are often scattered over centuries, but remained tethered to place, suggesting residential cycling and social memory. Perhaps the Fremont of the 11th to 13th centuries was akin to the Pueblo I expansions of the 10th century in the Southwest. Pueblo I villages were often short‐lived “trailer parks” lasting a generation or less. The people exhausted local resources, and moved on to fresh ground. Local variants developed, but as villages and groups split, only to reconstitute themselves, cultural unity is also apparent in the archaeology. As in the Southwest, we are finding that villages were central places in a shifting sea of smaller occupations. Portfolios of arable land were networked through kin and corporate alignments. Local migration shunted the labor pool across the landscape – a tempo of life and landscape. Each portfolio of farms hedged against a risk of failure, but also speculated on the prospect of surplus. Failure obliges people to others and surplus brings power. The kinship of farming was the social and ethical system that managed surplus, shortage, power and display. We employ these concepts in a model to portray a population dynamic to help think about the particular expression and causes of Fremont complexity.
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 2018
The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study o... more The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study of the indigenous cultures of the region. Neither obituaries nor memorials, Pioneers shares candid recollections that convey insight into the personalities and the cultural context of anthropology that shaped the scholarship of these pioneers. Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, “Sands of Time,” in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology , 2018
The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study o... more The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study of the indigenous cultures of the region. Neither obituaries nor memorials, Pioneers shares candid recollections that convey insight into the personalities and the cultural context of anthropology that shaped the scholarship of these pioneers. Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, "Sands of Time," in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Poster Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2014
Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss was shown evidence of ancient irrigation systems in central Utah... more Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss was shown evidence of ancient irrigation systems in central Utah during fieldwork in 1928 that first defined the Fremont culture. Instances of Fremont irrigation are known, but perceptions of the Fremont as a small-scale society of indigenous mixed foragers and farmers delayed empirical evaluation of Morss’s report.
Fieldwork beginning in 2010 documents an irrigation system 4.5 miles long bringing water from Pleasant Creek at 8,500’ to a 90 acre field at 7,100’ on the east slopes of Boulder Mountain, overlooking Capitol Reef National Park. On-going fieldwork includes excavations exposing subsurface canals, experimental archaeology on the costs of system construction and maintenance, magnetic gradiometer imaging, and dating of ditch sediments using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
Thus far, the use of our sections of excavated ditch date to the 16th and 17th centuries, well after the demise of the Fremont. While these findings do not preclude Fremont-age irrigation at the site, they raise consideration of the idea that irrigation farming occurred in the Late Prehistoric period.
Presentation Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2018, 2018
In 1928 Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss described ancient irrigation near Capitol Reef National... more In 1928 Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss described ancient irrigation near Capitol Reef National Park that defined the Fremont culture. We found this 7.2 km long small-water, mountain irrigation ditch system of hand construction and natural flows originating at 2450 m and terminating at 2170 m. Experimental modeling found even with capital and maintenance costs, irrigation is comparable to rainfall farming in the Southwest via increased productivity. Irrigation costs favor larger field size, and reduces risk. Dating by OSL and C14 document irrigation between A.D. 1460 – 1640, and two later events. Geomorphic evidence indicates earlier use of unknown antiquity. Ninety percent of dated archaeological sites nearby are Fremont (A.D. 600 – 1350). Implications include: Irrigation is predicted wherever topography and water allow and is perhaps crucial where the summer monsoon is unreliable such as north of the Colorado River. Irrigation by ancient farmers was emulated by 19th c. Euro-American farmers, hence ancient irrigation is destroyed or obscured by modern activities causing sampling bias against irrigation and toward marginal places. This case may be a continuation of earlier Fremont irrigation representing a persistence of farming as in the Puebloan Southwest, an unglamorous signal of continuity between the ancient and modern tribes.
A Field Study for the U.S. Forest Service, Manti LaSal NF to Evaluate Vandalism to Archaeological... more A Field Study for the U.S. Forest Service, Manti LaSal NF to Evaluate Vandalism to Archaeological Sites in Allen Canyon, San Juan County, Utah (part of Bears Ears region).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014
Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses a... more Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses about its cultural origin and meaning, but it is notoriously difficult to date numerically. Barrier Canyon-style (BCS) pictographs of the Colorado Plateau are among the most debated examples; hypotheses about its age span the entire Holocene epoch and previous attempts at direct radiocar-bon dating have failed. We provide multiple age constraints through the use of cross-cutting relations and new and broadly applicable approaches in optically stimulated luminescence dating at the Great Gallery panel, the type section of BCS art in Canyon-lands National Park, southeastern Utah. Alluvial chronostratigra-phy constrains the burial and exhumation of the alcove containing the panel, and limits are also set by our related research dating both a rockfall that removed some figures and the rock's exposure duration before that time. Results provide a maximum possible age, a minimum age, and an exposure time window for the creation of the Great Gallery panel, respectively. The only prior hypothesis not disproven is a late Archaic origin for BCS rock art, although our age result of A.D. ∼1-1100 coincides better with the transition to and rise of the subsequent Fremont culture. This chronology is for the type locality only, and variability in the age of other sites is likely. Nevertheless, results suggest that BCS rock art represents an artistic tradition that spanned cultures and the transition from foraging to farming in the region.
Poster Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2010
Large excavations in Clear Creek Canyon in the 1980s provided for the first time
a sense of the s... more Large excavations in Clear Creek Canyon in the 1980s provided for the first time a sense of the scale of Fremont sites yielding large numbers of residential and storage structures. Dozens of similar sites are known, but little was known about the sizes of those occupations. Historically, Fremont tends to be portrayed monolithically as limited to hamlets and farmsteads. The work at Clear Creek Canyon showed the presence of large villages of at least 100 people. A number of large Fremont villages show repeated pulses of occupation. The occupations are often scattered over centuries, but remained tethered to place, suggesting residential cycling and social memory. Perhaps the Fremont of the 11th to 13th centuries was akin to the Pueblo I expansions of the 10th century in the Southwest. Pueblo I villages were often short‐lived “trailer parks” lasting a generation or less. The people exhausted local resources, and moved on to fresh ground. Local variants developed, but as villages and groups split, only to reconstitute themselves, cultural unity is also apparent in the archaeology. As in the Southwest, we are finding that villages were central places in a shifting sea of smaller occupations. Portfolios of arable land were networked through kin and corporate alignments. Local migration shunted the labor pool across the landscape – a tempo of life and landscape. Each portfolio of farms hedged against a risk of failure, but also speculated on the prospect of surplus. Failure obliges people to others and surplus brings power. The kinship of farming was the social and ethical system that managed surplus, shortage, power and display. We employ these concepts in a model to portray a population dynamic to help think about the particular expression and causes of Fremont complexity.
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 2018
The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study o... more The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study of the indigenous cultures of the region. Neither obituaries nor memorials, Pioneers shares candid recollections that convey insight into the personalities and the cultural context of anthropology that shaped the scholarship of these pioneers. Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, “Sands of Time,” in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology , 2018
The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study o... more The Pioneers section of the Journal features personal reflections on major figures in the study of the indigenous cultures of the region. Neither obituaries nor memorials, Pioneers shares candid recollections that convey insight into the personalities and the cultural context of anthropology that shaped the scholarship of these pioneers. Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, "Sands of Time," in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Poster Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2014
Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss was shown evidence of ancient irrigation systems in central Utah... more Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss was shown evidence of ancient irrigation systems in central Utah during fieldwork in 1928 that first defined the Fremont culture. Instances of Fremont irrigation are known, but perceptions of the Fremont as a small-scale society of indigenous mixed foragers and farmers delayed empirical evaluation of Morss’s report.
Fieldwork beginning in 2010 documents an irrigation system 4.5 miles long bringing water from Pleasant Creek at 8,500’ to a 90 acre field at 7,100’ on the east slopes of Boulder Mountain, overlooking Capitol Reef National Park. On-going fieldwork includes excavations exposing subsurface canals, experimental archaeology on the costs of system construction and maintenance, magnetic gradiometer imaging, and dating of ditch sediments using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
Thus far, the use of our sections of excavated ditch date to the 16th and 17th centuries, well after the demise of the Fremont. While these findings do not preclude Fremont-age irrigation at the site, they raise consideration of the idea that irrigation farming occurred in the Late Prehistoric period.
Presentation Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2018, 2018
In 1928 Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss described ancient irrigation near Capitol Reef National... more In 1928 Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss described ancient irrigation near Capitol Reef National Park that defined the Fremont culture. We found this 7.2 km long small-water, mountain irrigation ditch system of hand construction and natural flows originating at 2450 m and terminating at 2170 m. Experimental modeling found even with capital and maintenance costs, irrigation is comparable to rainfall farming in the Southwest via increased productivity. Irrigation costs favor larger field size, and reduces risk. Dating by OSL and C14 document irrigation between A.D. 1460 – 1640, and two later events. Geomorphic evidence indicates earlier use of unknown antiquity. Ninety percent of dated archaeological sites nearby are Fremont (A.D. 600 – 1350). Implications include: Irrigation is predicted wherever topography and water allow and is perhaps crucial where the summer monsoon is unreliable such as north of the Colorado River. Irrigation by ancient farmers was emulated by 19th c. Euro-American farmers, hence ancient irrigation is destroyed or obscured by modern activities causing sampling bias against irrigation and toward marginal places. This case may be a continuation of earlier Fremont irrigation representing a persistence of farming as in the Puebloan Southwest, an unglamorous signal of continuity between the ancient and modern tribes.
Report to the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015
Management Summary: Numerous rock alignments 30 – 50 cm high and often hundreds of meters long oc... more Management Summary: Numerous rock alignments 30 – 50 cm high and often hundreds of meters long occupy upper Spanish Valley, near Moab, Utah. These features have long been documented to have been constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The same area yields dozens of prehistoric archaeological sites, including many Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) sites. While the age of the CCC walls is well established and they are well-documented, there is some evidence that portions of the CCC walls were constructed over prehistoric walls/terraces. Locals in the Moab area have long observed that some of the rock alignments in association with the CCC walls appear to be simple in construction, made of stones from different sources, and that underlay the CCC-era walls. It is well established that the Anasazi built stone walls to spread floodwater, and promote sedimentation creating agricultural terraces (see Cordell and McBrinn 2012:168-172). Terraces virtually identical to those in Spanish Valley are documented at Point of Pines, east-central Arizona (Woodbury 1961). A nearby example of agricultural terracing is found on Polar Mesa on the north slope of the LaSal Mountains above Spanish Valley (Fawcett 1996). The project reported here began with field investigations on May 21, 2013 and subsequent analysis to test whether the CCC era alignment may, in some cases, be constructed on top of prehistoric alignments. Samples of sediment and rock were recovered from one of the alignments near the old Moab airport. Optically stimulated luminescence dating described in this report concludes that at least some of the alignments are at least several hundred years old, and possibly as old as Ancestral Puebloan times 800 – 900 years ago. Additional dating may be able to narrow the age of the sampled alignment. These findings may be relevant to the management of the properties owned by SITLA.
Uploads
Papers by Steve Simms
Inventory of 74 sites and 2 test excavations .
a sense of the scale of Fremont sites yielding large numbers of residential and
storage structures. Dozens of similar sites are known, but little was known about
the sizes of those occupations. Historically, Fremont tends to be portrayed
monolithically as limited to hamlets and farmsteads.
The work at Clear Creek Canyon showed the presence of large villages of at least
100 people. A number of large Fremont villages show repeated pulses of
occupation. The occupations are often scattered over centuries, but remained
tethered to place, suggesting residential cycling and social memory.
Perhaps the Fremont of the 11th to 13th centuries was akin to the Pueblo I
expansions of the 10th century in the Southwest. Pueblo I villages were often
short‐lived “trailer parks” lasting a generation or less. The people exhausted
local resources, and moved on to fresh ground. Local variants developed, but as
villages and groups split, only to reconstitute themselves, cultural unity is also
apparent in the archaeology.
As in the Southwest, we are finding that villages were central places in a shifting
sea of smaller occupations. Portfolios of arable land were networked through
kin and corporate alignments. Local migration shunted the labor pool across the
landscape – a tempo of life and landscape. Each portfolio of farms hedged
against a risk of failure, but also speculated on the prospect of surplus. Failure
obliges people to others and surplus brings power. The kinship of farming was
the social and ethical system that managed surplus, shortage, power and
display. We employ these concepts in a model to portray a population dynamic
to help think about the particular expression and causes of Fremont complexity.
Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, “Sands of Time,” in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Fieldwork beginning in 2010 documents an irrigation system 4.5 miles long bringing water from Pleasant Creek at 8,500’ to a 90 acre field at 7,100’ on the east slopes of Boulder Mountain, overlooking Capitol Reef National Park. On-going fieldwork includes excavations exposing subsurface canals, experimental archaeology on the costs of system construction and maintenance, magnetic gradiometer imaging, and dating of ditch sediments using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
Thus far, the use of our sections of excavated ditch date to the 16th and 17th centuries, well after the demise of the Fremont. While these findings do not preclude Fremont-age irrigation at the site, they raise consideration of the idea that irrigation farming occurred in the Late Prehistoric period.
Inventory of 74 sites and 2 test excavations .
a sense of the scale of Fremont sites yielding large numbers of residential and
storage structures. Dozens of similar sites are known, but little was known about
the sizes of those occupations. Historically, Fremont tends to be portrayed
monolithically as limited to hamlets and farmsteads.
The work at Clear Creek Canyon showed the presence of large villages of at least
100 people. A number of large Fremont villages show repeated pulses of
occupation. The occupations are often scattered over centuries, but remained
tethered to place, suggesting residential cycling and social memory.
Perhaps the Fremont of the 11th to 13th centuries was akin to the Pueblo I
expansions of the 10th century in the Southwest. Pueblo I villages were often
short‐lived “trailer parks” lasting a generation or less. The people exhausted
local resources, and moved on to fresh ground. Local variants developed, but as
villages and groups split, only to reconstitute themselves, cultural unity is also
apparent in the archaeology.
As in the Southwest, we are finding that villages were central places in a shifting
sea of smaller occupations. Portfolios of arable land were networked through
kin and corporate alignments. Local migration shunted the labor pool across the
landscape – a tempo of life and landscape. Each portfolio of farms hedged
against a risk of failure, but also speculated on the prospect of surplus. Failure
obliges people to others and surplus brings power. The kinship of farming was
the social and ethical system that managed surplus, shortage, power and
display. We employ these concepts in a model to portray a population dynamic
to help think about the particular expression and causes of Fremont complexity.
Pioneers began with the 2015 issue, and in these first few years the focus has tilted toward the Great Basin rather than interior and coastal California. This decision was based on the existence of a similar effort, “Sands of Time,” in the journal California Archaeology that does an admirable job of remembering some of the early scholars of California anthropology. Perhaps it is time to broaden our geographic range for the JCGBA Pioneers section, and to also remind readers that the subject matter is anthropology, not just archaeology. The Pioneers sections in the 2016 issues of the Journal featuring Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward remind us of the intellectual breadth of these pioneers. If you have suggestions regarding a potential Pioneer, and the names and contact information for those who may wish to share a recollection, please contact Steven Simms (s.simms@usu.edu).
Fieldwork beginning in 2010 documents an irrigation system 4.5 miles long bringing water from Pleasant Creek at 8,500’ to a 90 acre field at 7,100’ on the east slopes of Boulder Mountain, overlooking Capitol Reef National Park. On-going fieldwork includes excavations exposing subsurface canals, experimental archaeology on the costs of system construction and maintenance, magnetic gradiometer imaging, and dating of ditch sediments using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
Thus far, the use of our sections of excavated ditch date to the 16th and 17th centuries, well after the demise of the Fremont. While these findings do not preclude Fremont-age irrigation at the site, they raise consideration of the idea that irrigation farming occurred in the Late Prehistoric period.