Provo's Hinckley mounds reveal details about Fremont Indians

PROVO — Not far from the bustling center of Provo, students have been working to uncover details about the lives of those who lived in the area more than a thousand years ago.

While researchers have known about the Provo Mounds since pioneers arrived in the 1800s, a lot still remains to be explored. A team of students from Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University have been working to excavate the Hinckley Mounds, which are located near Utah Lake.

"It was a wonderful place prehistorically for people to live," said project co-director Mike Searcy, an archaeology professor at BYU. "There were a lot of resources (like water and arable land). And then not only that, you have the mountain resources that were close by for hunting deer and larger game that were also active. We have bones that show they were accessing a lot of that food too."

The Hinckley Mounds represent a large village where Fremont Indians lived and farmed from about 700 A.D. to 1300 A.D., according to Searcy. One of the structures students worked to excavate was a traditional pit house that featured a clay-lined hearth and ventilation shaft. Inside, they found several artifacts, including pieces of bone harpoons that were used for fishing.

Another pit structure had a circular design with a series of rooms attached to each other, which Searcy said were possibly used for food storage purposes. A small clay doll common to Fremont Indians was discovered inside. At the most well-known mound the team found two sets of adobe walls, indicating that the home was used during two occupations with a group leaving the structure and then returning to build it again.

One of the main reasons Searcy decided to focus on researching the Provo Mounds is because they are endangered. While about 120 mounds were noted on a map made by amateur archaeologists in the 1930s, only a handful remain now due to development expansion.

Just at the end of 2014, the Utah Department of Transportation started work to put in a new road in the area that went through a prehistoric site estimated to be about 3,000 years old, according to Searcy. He said the road, which is currently being paved, came within 20 yards of one of the main mounds.

"As development continues out there it's going to continue to eat up a lot of the archaeology, which if it's not mitigated by being excavated and recorded will be lost forever," Searcy said. "So one of our main goals was to salvage the site, especially in light of (the fact that) this road even came right through and destroyed a portion of the site that has never been excavated."

The Provo Mounds themselves were actually created naturally by the accretion of debris carried by streams in the area. Searcy said the Fremont Indians likely chose to build on top of the mounds because the area frequently floods.

The history of flooding should serve as a warning for city planners, developers and potential homeowners because it is an imminent problem, according to Searcy. He estimated that a flood could occur within the next 10 to 15 years, depending on rainfall. A geologist told him the area is also conducive to liquefaction, which causes major shifting in soils during earthquakes.

"It's not the greatest place to put your home if you're looking to keep it dry or keep it from sinking into the ground when these major events happen," Searcy said. "Now, flooding doesn't happen every other week, but if you're looking to buy a home and stay there for 30 years there is a high likelihood that either your basement is going to be flooded... or the whole home is going to be flooded and because of what the archaeology and geology show us."

While people don't always think of using archaeology as a tool to plan for the future, Searcy said he is becoming increasingly aware of its value.

"If people have made these mistakes in the past or have had these experiences we should learn from it," he said. "I think the Provo mounds provide us that opportunity."

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