Audio Tour: Sacramento Pass, Baker & Great Basin National Park
The Baker Archaeological Site, also known as Baker Village, contains the remains of a Fremont Indian village occupied from approximately 1220 to 1295 CE. The Fremont lived in this well planned community of several small pit houses and granaries, surrounding a main big house, and practiced a form of agriculture.
The site was excavated by Brigham Young University's Office of Public Archaeology, in cooperation with the BLM, from 1991 to 1994. Recovered artifacts are currently stored at BYU's Museum of People and Cultures in Provo, Utah.
After the excavations, the site was backfilled (reburied with the dirt that was removed during excavation), a necessary step in protecting the cultural features that remain. As a result, the foundations of the village can no longer be seen on the surface. The walls visible today are modern walls, built in 2002. Artifacts found on the ground may be observed, but not removed, from the site.
The site is currently administerd by the Bureau of Land Management. Brochures and an information kiosk are located at the parking area. A restroom, picnic tables, and a sun shelter are available for day use. No water is available.
The Baker Archaeological Site is located on a cut-off road that runs between NV Hwy 487 at Baker, Nevada, and US Hwy 6/50. The cutoff is one-half mile north of the Great Basin Visitor Center.
Fremont Pilling Figurines, unfired clay Fremont figurines, on display in the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum. Image by Brian Lee/CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia).
Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan people began to incorporate farming into their hunter-gatherer lifestyles approximately 2,000 years ago. Baker Archaeological Site is the most western site attributed to the Fremont culture.
Anthropologists suggest that the Fremont were hunter-gatherers who supplemented their diet by farming corn, beans, and squash along waterways and floodplains. Edible native plants included pinyon nuts, rice grass, and a variety of berries, nuts, bulbs, and tubers. Corn was ground into meal on a stone surface (metate) using a hand-held grinding stone (mano). Deer, bighorn sheep, rabbits, birds, fish, and rodents were hunted using snares, nets, fishhooks, the atlatl (spear-throwing stick) and the bow and arrow.
Several artifacts are distinctive to the Fremont. A unique style of basketry, called one-rod-and-bundle, incorporated willow, yucca, milkweed and other native fibers. Pottery, mostly graywares, had smooth, polished surfaces or corrugated designs pinched into the clay. The Fremont made moccasins from the lower-leg hide of large animals, such as deer, bighorn sheep, or bison. Dew claws were left on the soles, possibly providing extra traction on slippery surfaces.
Elevation: 5,278 ft
State: Nevada
District: White Pine County
Coordinates (WGS84): 39.03737; -114.12246
Nearest town: Baker, NV
Distance from the convention center: 62 miles
The Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah, where the culture's sites were discovered by local indigenous peoples like the Navajo and Ute.
Sitting at Nevada's eastern edge of the "Loneliest Road in America," Ely is a remote mountain town where history, art and outdoor adventure thrive. Ely was founded in the 1870s as a stagecoach stop and trading post called Murray Station, but it would become one of the country's major copper mining regions.
The Nevada Northern Railway arrived in 1906. Now, this well preserved short-line railway draws visitors from all over the world to ride on its queens of steam and historic diesel engines.
Burrowed in the Toquima Range in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Toquima Cave holds massive cultural importance to Native Americans. This sacred site was utilized by the Western Shoshone tribes as a temporary dwelling between 3,000 and 1,500 years ago.
A large number of pictographs adorn the north and south walls of the cave. As one of many pictograph sites in Nevada, Toquima Cave and the surrounding 40 acres were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Mostly clear, with a low around 34. South southeast wind around 10 mph.
Patchy blowing dust between 1pm and 5pm. Sunny, with a high near 72. South wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph.
Partly cloudy, with a low around 39. South wind 15 to 20 mph.
WCC Ball Cap
Wearing a ball cap? Oh, that's a whole vibe. It's like saying, "I'm strong, but I'm not here for your speleo-approval." It's the kind of quiet power that doesn't scream for attention, but when it walks into the room, everyone knows it's the real deal. No need to flaunt or flex when you've got that kind of effortless strength, right?
Yet, while being grounded and focused on what truly matters, you can still shine at your next grotto meeting by declaring your subtle support of the Western Cave Conservancy!
