Anasazi State Park and the Coombs Village
Near Escalante, Utah
In the town of Boulder, at the foot of eleven thousand foot Boulder Mountain, lies the site of one of the largest ancient villages ever found west of the Colorado River. Today it is preserved as Anasazi State Park Museum, built around a settlement archaeologists call the Coombs Site. Around nine hundred years ago, between roughly ten fifty and twelve hundred years after the time of Christ, Ancestral Puebloan farmers built a thriving community here, a cluster of masonry and adobe rooms where as many as two hundred fifty people once lived.
They grew corn, beans, and squash in the well watered valley, made pottery, and traded across the region. The village was only briefly excavated, in nineteen fifty eight and nineteen fifty nine, when the University of Utah dug here ahead of the Glen Canyon Dam project and uncovered thousands of artifacts and about ninety rooms. Most of the site remains unexcavated, still holding its secrets beneath the ground.
One clue stands out. Many of the wooden building supports were found burned, suggesting the town was abandoned after a great fire, though whether by accident, conflict, or choice remains unknown. The word Anasazi comes from the Navajo language, and many modern Pueblo people prefer the term Ancestral Puebloan for their forebears.
A reconstructed six room dwelling and a museum of pottery and tools let visitors step into a world that flourished here long before any pioneer arrived.
