1. 1 This article is based on a portion of The Crimson Cowboys: The Remarkable Odyssey of the 1931 Claflin-Emerson Expedition by Jerry D. Spangler and James M. Aton, which the University of Utah Press will publish in fall 2018. James H. Gunnerson, The Fremont Culture: A Study in Culture Dynamics on the Northern Anasazi Frontier, Including the Report of the Claflin-Emerson Expedition of the Peabody Museum, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 59, no. 2 (Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 1969): 23.
2. 2 See Noel Morss, The Ancient Culture of the Fremont River in Utah, Peabody Museum of American Anthropology and Ethnology 12, no. 3 (1931). This was the now-classic report that established the name and the outlines of what is now known as the Fremont Complex, named after the river near Torrey, Utah.
3. 3 “Fremont Complex” is used by Utah archaeologists as an umbrella term to describe farmers and foragers north of the Colorado River, although there are distinct differences in adaptations from region to region. In some areas, the Fremont peoples were highly dependent on cultivated maize, and in other areas they depended more on wild plants, especially marsh resources. A hallmark of the Fremont was their ability to shift adaptive strategies between farming and foraging as conditions warranted.
4. 4 Don D. Fowler, the foremost expert on the history of western archaeology, correctly observes that the Glen Canyon Project—the archaeological investigations done in advance of the Glen Canyon Dam construction in southern Utah and northern Arizona in the late 1950s and early 1960s—probably surpassed the geographic scope of the 1931 Claflin-Emerson Expedition, but it did not begin to approach it in terms of logistical difficulty. The Glen Canyon crews primarily used trucks and rubber rafts to complete their surveys, occasionally resorting to horses and backpacks to access certain roadless areas like the Kaiparowits Plateau. The 1931 expedition, conducted almost exclusively with horses and mules, benefited only rarely from any motorized vehicle support.
5. 5 Donald Scott, “Preliminary Report on a Reconnaissance in North Eastern Utah Conducted by The Peabody Museum of Harvard University, July, August and September, 1931,” Claflin-Emerson Expedition Field Records, 31–16-10/100240.1.7 (hereafter Claflin-Emerson Records), Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (hereafter Peabody Museum).