Edge of Cedars State Park - Utah
/One of my favorite things from the museum - beautiful and unusual - is a necklace made from insect legs. The necklace was found in a stash of illegally collected artifacts but there was a bracelet found (and the location well documented) that looked very similar. Were they ever a set?
The materials used by ancient peoples (aside from clay which will be the topic of a later post) were highlighted in the exhibits and some of them surprised me. The yucca fibers look like blonde hair. The broken pot that still holds the mesh of beads and rope someone long ago stuffed into it reminds us how pottery was used for storage of just about everything. And turkey feathers were used to construct blankets! Juniper bark was twisted to make mats. Macaw feathers were used to make a sash; the top part of the sash is squirrel fur (from a species found in northern Arizona/southern Utah) so the sash may have been made in the same area rather than made somewhere else and traded into the area; there are macaw skeletons found in some ruins. There was a set of stone knives with handles; the dry climate of the area preserves many items that would have decayed in other climates.
Enjoy the slide show from the Edge of Cedars State Park.