The Cedar Mesa Perishables Project was established in 2011 to document the nearly 5,000 unpublished archaeological textiles, baskets, wooden implements, and hide and feather artifacts excavated from dry caves in the Bears Ears National Monument and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area during the 1890s. Now housed in six museums across the United States, the artifacts are associated with the Basketmaker (200 BC-700 AD) and Ancestral Pueblo (700-1300 AD) archaeological cultures. Our goal is to survey, photograph, and interpret these collections and make them more widely known to archaeologists, native communities, and the general public for research and educational use.
Team members Chris Lewis and Louie Garcia, joined by perishables specialist Dr. Edward Jolie, studying a cotton tie-dye blanket from Lake Canyon (Glen Canyon) at the Penn Museum in 2019. Courtesy, Penn Museum.
With the financial support of private donations and grants, our collaborative research team has traveled to museums for weeks at a time to “re-excavate” and document these extraordinary archaeological collections. With the completion of our documentation work in 2022, we are now working on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant proposal to upload our data and photographs to tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record) and develop an online searchable Bears Ears Perishable Archive. Our goal is to reunite these dispersed museum collections into a single virtual database. We are also developing ways to share our information with tribal historic preservation departments, museums, and community members.
Mary Weahkee, Santa Clara Pueblo/Comanche Archaeologist and Perishables Specialist.
Chuck LaRue, Wildlife Biologist
Chris Lewis, Zuni Fiber Artist
Erin Gearty, Archaeologist and Textiles Specialist / Laurie Webster, Project Director & Perishables Specialist / Louie Garcia, Tiwa/Piro Pueblo Weaver & Cultural Specialist
To Learn More:
- In 2017, American Archaeology Magazine published a cover story about the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project. You can read the article here:
- The 30-minute documentary, Languages of the Landscape: The Cedar Mesa Perishables Project is available for viewing at https://cloudyridgeproductions.com/ (scroll down to the film).
- To learn more about the making of the project’s collaborative archaeological team, watch the Archaeology Café webinar, Weaving a Partnership: The Collaborative Journey of the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N4qRzG8o-E.
Our fiscal sponsorship with the Bears Ears Partnership (formerly the Friends of Cedar Mesa) has helped us to raise more than $22,000 in private donations through this website. In 2022, we used these funds to radiocarbon date almost 100 perishable artifacts, with results ranging in age from 6500 BC to AD 1280. We continue to raise funds for this dating study. To support the project with a tax-deductible donation, please use the form below.
