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Protecting the Past

Interview with Blaine Miller Archaeologist Bureau of Land Management

Ken Verdoia: This story is about how Nine Mile Canyon is "being loved to death"…describe that and explain what we are seeing.

Blaine Miller: This is one of the good examples of a site that's being loved to death. That people go, climb over this rock art here, get closer to it, and also the kids just love to play on this boulder and sliding down the boulder, you can see how it has polished the boulder and in some places it's obliterated the rock art.

Ken Verdoia: What else do we see around here that shows the signs of modern culture impacting ancient culture?

Blaine Miller: Right down here we have an example of somebody trying to chip the rock art panel off of the rock with a chisel…chiseling it off--and behind that is where they've written a message over the top of prehistoric rock art. Throughout the cave there's numerous examples of people writing their names and dates, when they were here. Behind these rocks they've done illegal excavations searching for things that were left by the prehistoric people. That is even continuing today. There are, these excavations are taking place.

Ken Verdoia: It seems as though these people aren't trying to be malicious, they just want to be closer to history. Is that true?

Blaine Miller: Yeah, I, I think most of the people either want to just come and enjoy it, and don't know the proper way, the proper etiquette, to be around it without damaging it. If it was just one person, what they'd do wouldn't damage it at all. But when you have hundreds and thousands of people over here, it tends to polish the rock, wear it down. Also, leaving their names…I think that they look up there and they see prehistorically somebody left evidence that they were here, and so they think that that would be all right for them to leave evidence that they were here. And through the canyon you're seeing examples of that, and now they've become historic inscriptions. But the more and the more people that we have visit an area, these inscriptions start damaging more and more, and rather than becoming part of history, they become part of the problem.

Ken Verdoia: You're an archaeologist. Has this sight, due to the impact of modern people on it, ceased to become a teaching instrument?

Blaine Miller: Yes. A good share of the information that this site once had about the people that lived here, not only the Fremont but the people before and the people after, the evidence that is here is just a little piece or a couple of pages of that whole story books is all that's left. Most of it has been removed, and we will never know what it is.