Ancient Puebloans left structures, pottery, tools, graves and countless other artifacts in Utah’s Bears Ears region, but they also left plant communities, rich with nutritional and healing properties, which are still growing in and around archaeological sites to this day, according to new research by University of Utah scientists and Indigenous colleagues.
With an eye toward documenting the presence of 117 culturally significant plant species, the study examined 25 such sites within Bears Ears National Monument’s original boundaries, designated in 2016 by President Barack Obama. These are plants used by the Hopi, Ute, Apache, Zuni and Navajo, the tribes that trace ancestry to this area centered around Cedar Mesa, which was heavily occupied 1,000 years ago by Puebloan cultures...