ABSTRACT
In April, 1956, Congress authorized the Upper Colorado River Storage Project. The project involved the construction of dams in Glen Canyon on the Colorado; in Flaming Gorge on the Green River; and Navajo Reservoir Dam on the San Juan River. Federal funding for the archaeological salvage projects was channeled through the Santa Fe office of the National Park Service (NPS) under the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program (IASP). The parties agreed that the Museum of New Mexico Laboratory of Anthropology would handle the Navajo Reservoir Project, the University of Utah (UUtah) would oversee the Flaming Gorge Project, and UUtah and the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) would jointly handle the Glen Canyon Project. The Flaming Gorge Dam created a narrow, 91-mile-long reservoir on the Green River in northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming. In short, the Colorado River salvage programs helped trained a generation of archaeologists and set the methodological stage for what became known as cultural resource management.
