Looting in Plain Sight

摘要

TODAY, FEW PEOPLE INHABITsoutheast Utah, a high-desert landscape where a maze of sandstone canyons drain toward the San Juan River. But 1,000 years ago, the region was home to a booming agrarian society. It is not difficult to find evidence of past cultures-cliff dwellings where painted pottery lies strewn among crumbling walls, ethereal faces that were etched onto boulders before the birth of Julius Caesar, and 150-year-old Ute petroglyphs depicting figures in feathered headdresses. Near some ancient pueblos, historic cowboy signatures mark the walls, rounding out a millennia-long story of human habitation.