Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A battle over the question of local control vs. federal power is playing out in the Western U.S. once again, and this time, it involves a prized Native American archaeological site.
It’s happening in Utah, where federal prosecutors filed criminal charges of conspiracy yesterday against five men who organized an illegal all-terrain vehicle ride into a canyon closed to motorized vehicles. Seven years ago, federal land managers closed the canyon to ATVs and the like to protect it. Since that time, the dispute has come to stand for a much larger fight.
Jeffrey Brown visited the canyon and the protest organizers for his series Culture at Risk.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): It’s called Recapture Canyon, 28 miles of rocky cliffs, juniper trees and wildlife in southeast Utah.
And for hundreds of years, beginning around 500 A.D., it was home to a large Native American Pueblo population.
So how many people would have lived in a place like this?
JODY PATTERSON, Archaeologist: In a structure like, you would have probably had an extended family, 10, 12, maybe up to 15 people.
