Glen Canyon

Glen Canyon is a natural canyon in the Vermilion Cliffs area of southeastern and south-central Utah and north-central Arizona in the United States. Like the Grand Canyon to the south, Glen Canyon is part of the immense system of canyons carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries.

In 1963, a reservoir, Lake Powell, was created by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, flooding much of Glen Canyon beneath water hundreds of feet in depth. Lake Powell was the result of negotiations over the controversial damming of the Green River within Dinosaur National Monument, a project which was abandoned in favor of the Glen Canyon Dam. The dam remains a central issue for modern environmentalist movements. Beginning in the late 1990s, the Sierra Club and other organizations renewed the call to dismantle the dam and drain Lake Powell in Lower Glen Canyon.

Today, Glen Canyon and Lake Powell are managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

Around 1956, archaeologists and biologists from the University of Utah and the Museum of Northern Arizona, using National Park research grants, planned an emergency excavation of Lower Glen Canyon, which was soon to be flooded by the new Glen Canyon Dam. Between 1958 and 1960, four investigative phases, combined with other surveys prior to 1957, discovered 250 archaeological sites within the canyon. The Lower Glen Canyon survey was completed in 1958.

Excavations began during the summer of 1958 on 16 sites. A thesis emerged that prehistoric people living permanently on the highlands south of Glen Canyon, and on the Cummings Mesa, farmed the Lower Glen Canyon on a seasonal basis, and gathered raw materials. To prove this thesis of seasonal habitation, criteria such as architectural units, locations of trail systems, occurrence of ceremonial structures, prevalence of burials, and position of natural and cultural strata. Four types of sites are described in the survey classified as either open sites situated on rock terraces; talus sites on broken material below cliffs; shelter sites in protected areas under overhanging cliffs; and cliff sites beneath ledges or in caves and canyon walls. Open sites are the majority on both sides of the river. The majority of sites, mostly Navajo camps, feature lithic garbage or ceramics, or both. Talus sites are rarely recorded.

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