Utah Lake has been used for thousands of years. What was its prehistoric life like?

Editor's note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com's Historic section.

PROVO — Utah Lake is once again a focal point of life along the Wasatch Front.

As state and local leaders look for solutions to help the ailing lake, it's also at the center of a controversial multibillion-dollar dredging proposal that would include man-made islands. Nearly 250,000 people came to the state park in Provo alone last year and it's at the center of one of Utah's fastest-growing counties.

But what makes it so unique — aside from being the largest freshwater lake in the Great Basin region — is that it's always been an important part of human life on the land that's now modern-day Utah.

"So many people lived around Utah Lake in prehistory. Utah Valley was undeniably the center of culture and anyone coming from this metropolis from the yawning desert to the west would have walked around Utah Lake (and) would have been impressed by what they saw," said Elizabeth Hora, an archeologist for the Utah State Historic Preservation Office.

"A lot of places that feel to us today like the middle of nowhere were the center of the universe at earlier points in time," she adds. "This area attracted people to it like a magnet to create rock imagery."

The artifacts and engravings left behind on the rocks tell their story.

After spending time researching the petroglyph panels and other artifacts at the 200-acre Smith Family Archeological Preserve by the Lake Mountains west of Utah Lake, Hora recently presented her findings during an online event hosted by the Archeological Conservancy.

The preserve features two knolls with "well over" 200 boulders that have prehistoric rock images on them. Some of the archaeological records in the area date back to as early as 13,000 B.C. but most of the rock art at the Smith Family Archeological Preserve ranges from just before 2,000 B.C. to times closer to the modern day.

This range includes a mix of the late Archaic Period through the duration of the Fremont Culture, a period just before Europeans arrived.

"Many of these boulders have more than one panel on them, and many of these panels have more than one element on them," she said. "We are not done counting how many individual elements there are out here but a conservative guess puts it in the thousands."

Ancient cultures used rock art for many reasons, such as artistic expression, prayers and offerings, magic or curses, communication, rites of passage and even records of events, so the motivation for every piece of rock art is never really clear.

And since there isn't much dirt to excavate like archeologists normally would use, surface surveys like this were a greater benefit in understanding prehistoric life. Using tree rings and radiocarbon dating to help piece together the history, she was able to explain what the site — and similar sites surrounding the lake — say about ancient human life by Utah Lake.

A 'prehistoric grocery store'

One thing that is certain about prehistoric life is that the lake was an invaluable resource, which is likely why it has sustained life for as long as it has.

Created with the help of snowmelt from the Uinta and Wasatch mountains, the lake and its tributaries not only provided water but also food, such as fish, waterfowl and plants. The marshlands by the eastern shore were sort of "prehistoric grocery stores," Hora said.

Clay and native reeds in the marshland could also be used for all sorts of other important items, including pottery and building materials. The rock art seems to indicate fishnets were used to reel in fish.

"The lake itself is — and was — incredibly rich and a diverse resource. It is the largest freshwater body for hundreds of miles around, which is really important when you're situated on the western edge of one of North America's deserts," she said, adding that many of the natural water lakes people see today are actually man-made reservoirs.

The western shore has always been a gateway to the desert. The area to the west brought different resources, like various rocks that could be made into tools, herds of deer and antelope and plants like pickleweed. The fall rut proved to be a perfect time for hunting antelope because it would provide large clusters of animals, making it easier to track down and harvest.

"If you were in the desert at the right time, the desert was a very profitable place to be," Hora explained.

Where people lived

This rock art helps archaeologists pinpoint exactly where ancient cultures lived. There are several examples of Archaic Period art pieces scattered around the land that surrounds Utah Lake. Many of these remaining artifacts show life to the north, south and west of the lake.

Many people lived in what are referred to today as "temporary camps" that were used for a few days or weeks before the people in them moved elsewhere. Hora said some of these campsites were used once, while others were used multiple times over hundreds or even thousands of years.

In fall and winter, groups would cluster together in areas a little farther away from the lake, where they'd hunt. Camps near marshes were likely spring and summer camps, when other resources were made available.

"In the late Archaic, people moved around a lot, following changing abundances of plants and animals," Hora explained. "In the summer, people traveled in small groups of maybe just one or two families — and they moved fairly frequently to take advantage of rapid cycling plant and animals resources."

Based on similar patterns in rock art, this group had connections from Provo all the way through to Reno, Nevada.

Archeologists still aren't completely sure what the patterns mean. What is known, is that the people traveled across the Great Basin and were able to read the art for "some degree of commonality." The means people in the region could have been from different groups with different languages but could have had a similar ideology behind having the same symbols, Hora said.

There are quite a bit more Fremont Culture relics available on the land surrounding all sides of the lake, starting about 400 to 500 A.D. This was also about the same time that the region began to suffer from larger droughts. The current megadrought is, for instance, considered the most severe megadrought since about 800 A.D., according to researchers.

Archeologists believe this shift in climate helped drive ancient residents from a hunter-and-gather lifestyle to a more agrarian one. That's more prominent in what's now modern-day American Southwest and northwestern Mexico, Hora said.

In the communities by Utah Lake, it was likely more of a mix of the two. The Fremont grew corn, beans and squash — but also hunted. Baskets were made to transport and store dry goods like nuts and seeds. There are some examples of pottery, as well.

What remains today

Aside from the Smith Family Archeological Preserve, there are plenty of artifacts that remain from prehistoric life by Utah Lake. Experts likely will never get a full picture of prehistoric life just because it's difficult to decipher what all the imagery means.

They also know they don't have everything that once existed on the land. Graffiti and target shooting have damaged some of this history in the past few years; however, some of it was also moved or modified by development in recent decades before that.

As Hora puts it, some of this past has "walked away" — something she says is "mind-boggling to think about" as an archeologist.

While the lake's story may be unclear all these years later, the petroglyphs make it clear that Utah Lake played an important role in the past — much like it matters to so many today.

"(There are) thousands of images calling out for attention thousands of years between us and their creators, and thousands of years between the last creator and the very first," she said. "This place is ancient and special."

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