Contact: Hannelore Sudermann, 509-335-1247, sudermann@wsu.edu
Ghost Towns of the Anasazi
Professor Bill Lipe is WSU's first expert in Southwest archaeology. His work there in the 1970s and 1980s established a WSU presence in the Four Corners area.
Nearly 30 years ago anthropologist Bill Lipe and about 25 of his
Washington State University students and colleagues moved into a
set of abandoned villages in a remote corner of southern Colorado.
They spent their summer days there on a mission to uncover the
stories of some of America's oldest ghost towns.
As co-investigators with the University of Colorado on a Bureau of
Reclamation project, Lipe's team had just a few years to salvage
important portions of the historical record before nearly 4,500
acres along the Dolores River would be flooded by the McPhee
Reservoir.
Ancient Anasazi communities once lived there and throughout the
Four Corners region of the Southwest. Some have collapsed into
piles of rubble. Others still stand as awesome fortresses tucked in
the cliffs below Colorado's high mesas. And still others, like
those along the Dolores, have been lost forever to development,
farming, mining, and dams.
The WSU team focused on an area that had seen its largest
populations from A.D. 600 to 900. As the project started, the
researchers realized they were on the verge of discovering a large
and complex society, with more than 1,600 sites in the Dolores
River basin.
There was so much to learn and so little time to look.
Click here for the full story from Washington State
Magazine.