The Toovuhsuhvooch Archaeological District, located in Carbon County, is significant at the statewide level under Criteria A, C and D. Also, Criteria Consideration A applies because of the presumed religious use by Native peoples in the past. However, the district has significance in many other areas besides religion. Under Criterion A, the district is significant in the areas of Agriculture, Commerce, and Native American ethnic heritage and religion . Specifically, the district represents an excellent example of emergence, fluorescence, and demise of prehistoric agricultural lifeways unique to this region between AD 400-1300. This lifeway was remarkably successful, producing food surpluses that could be exchanged with other groups who shared their ethnic heritages and ideologies, as evidenced by the unique and repetitious iconography of their rock art images found the entire length of Nine Mile Canyon. Under Criterion C, the district is significant in the area of Art. The images found here constitute a distinctive catalog of motifs that represent different periods of time and cultural identities that likely span 12,000 years of human history in this region, but one that reached unprecedented complexity during agricultural times (AD 400-1300). Under Criterion D, the district is significant as it has the potential to yield information in the areas of prehistoric archaeology, prehistoric agriculture, and prehistoric commerce. The period of significance coincides with the most significant occupation period which occurred during Fremont times (AD 400-1300) when maize farming emerged as the dominant lifeway. Farming remained a viable way of life for nearly 900 years. Innovative research into the style, composition, location, and socio-cultural meaning of prehistoric rock art is a robust academic field, and these sites have high integrity to convey important information of past lifeways, local landscape use, and a cosmological understanding of past and contemporary Native peoples. The District is being nominated under the Historic and Prehistoric Resources of Nine Mile Canyon Multiple Property Submission within the following associated historic contexts: “West Tavaputs Adaptation (Fremont era),” and “Prehistoric Rock Art.”
