Archeology monitoring with Museum of Northern Arizona
NPS
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument Collections
The collections are part of a larger National Park Service collections program. NPS museums collect objects specific to the mission of the individual parks and interpret those collections in their original context. Their scope is wider than that of most public or private institutions, providing broad representation of the natural and cultural heritage of the United States. Park museums and collections are distinguished by a strong association with place. Our collections pertain specifically to the areas within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
Most uses of collections are educational and may include:
Research conducted by scientists,historians, archeologists, ethnographers and other specialists
Publications
Exhibits in NPS museums and visitor centers, as well as loans to non-NPS museums for special exhibitions
Educational programs at the park, schools, or other public venues
Media products such as documentaries (motion picture, television, and radio), web sites, web casts, and virtually any other new media format
For Glen Canyon
Our museum collections of over 900,000 items contribute directly to the understanding and interpretation of the park’s purposes, themes and resources.
The cultural collection documents the use and settlement of the park units from the Paleoindian period (11,500 years ago) to the present. More than 2,600 archeological and historical sites have been documented. These sites, spanning a vast temporal and geographical range, have produced thousands of artifacts and spurred archeological research for over a century.
Archival display: Prehistoric pot, corn cobs
NPS
The archeological collection includes:
Stone projectile points and tools
Sandals
Bone tools
Large and small ceramic vessels
Textiles
Cradle boards
Corn cobs and other food items
Animal remains
Soil, pollen and charcoal samples
Bullfrog Visitor Center exhibit
NPS
The historical archeological collection tells the story of exploration, ranching, mining, river running and ferry operations and includes materials dating to the 19thand 20th centuries. Lees Ferry Historic District and Lonely Dell Ranch Historic District provided the largest collection of historical archeological materials.
Leave surface artifacts where you find them, document their location, notify park staff at any visitor center or call 928-608-6200.
Native American Consultation Committee, 2018
NPS
The Native American ethnographic and historic collection includes objects and archives produced or used by associated Native American tribes that have a traditional, historical, cultural, or religious association with our park units. This collection illustrates the continuity, importance and ongoing nature of tribal relationships to the landscapes and resources, as well as the creative, artistic and cultural traditions of the associated tribes which include:
Fossils and trackways found by visitors or staff should not be removed from their original location.
Fossils, including trackways, are protected by federal law (Paleontological Resource Protection Act). If you think you have found a trackway or fossil, please do not collect or attempt to move it. Instead, take a picture (with your phones GPS on so we can find it) and either visit your nearest park visitor center or call 928-608-6200 with as much information about your find as possible. This helps us to protect our nation's paleontological resources.
These tracks belong to the dinosaur ichnospecies, Eubrontes. Similarly assigned tracks are found throughout the world in late Triassic and early Jurassic rocks. What kinds of information do you think trackways can provide paleontologists?
NPS
The paleontological collection represents some 300 million years of time and include weird amphibians from the Permian, dinosaurs, and plesiosaur reptiles from the Mesozoic (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous), and giant ground sloth and mastodon dung from the Pleistocene. Most of our approximately 50,0000 specimens are housed at museums, including at the Museum of Northern Arizona and the Natural History Museum of Utah. In addition, the collection includes:
Over 350 trackways ranging from the Late Permian to the Jurassic, representing the living behavior if only for a moment in ancient time of the animals that left them
Nearly complete plesiosaur and therizinosaur fossils
Thousands of smaller vertebrate and invertebrate fossils
A large collection of Ice Age bones, dung, pollen and pack rat midden deposit samples
Footprints and trackways are traces of extinct animal behaviors. Paleontologists cannot always identify the species of animals by their tracks alone, so we have to assign such tracks an "ichnospecies" (icno=trace) name (Figure to the right).
The Larval Fish Laboratory, Colorado State University, provides thousands of larval fish specimens for study from permitted research of Glen Canyon’s 17 non-native and eight native fish species.
Rainbow Bridge Register
NPS
Archival Collection
The Archival Collection documents administrative history and research conducted in the park units in order to inform future management decisions.
The archival collection contains more than 670,000 items including:
Field records
Reports
Personal collections
Photographs, slides
Maps
Movies and video recordings
Oral histories
Resource management records
Building plans and specifications
Scientific studies
Electronic records
Artwork donated from Artists-in-the-Park
Contact Information:
For research requests, please contact our Museum Technician by email with the subject "Research Request" or call 928-608-6280 and leave a message.
Last updated: January 9, 2024
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Contact Info
Mailing Address:
PO Box 1507
Page,
AZ
86040
Phone:
928 608-6200
Receptionist available at Glen Canyon Headquarters from 7 am to 4 pm MST, Monday through Friday. The phone is not monitored when the building is closed. If you are having an emergency, call 911 or hail National Park Service on Marine Band 16.
