Welcome to the CORTEZ CULTURAL CENTER

The Fulks’ Collection (Indigenous Artifacts)

Mr. Joe P. Fulks’ collection of ancestral Puebloan pottery was accrued over many years of farming and cultivation, between the years 1925 to 1975, at his farm on Goodman Point, Colorado.

The ruin sites of this collection are located on 320 acres of dry farmland, within the West-central portion of Montezuma County (near Sand Canyon). This farmland was homesteaded by Joe’s parents and relatives around the year 1912.

In approximately 1953, the Anthropology Department of the University of Colorado made a general survey of private farmland in the area. Twenty-seven indigenous sites of various age and type were found and recorded on the Fulks’ property. The survey party dug several test trenches and excavated one Kiva on one large surface ruin. The University was offered further free access to the Fulks ruins but declined, probably due to lack of funding and the availability of far larger ruins on government land adjacent to the Fulks’ farmland.

Through the years, Joe became interested and recognized the importance of keeping these artifacts from the plow—a realization sadly not shared by a majority of other dry farmland farmers in the Four Corners area.

Many of the ceramic and lithic artifacts were plowed up by Joe (as evidenced by plow marks and some repaired pieces) while farming. Other pieces were excavated on sites known to him that he didn’t farm (room structures, midden sites, gravesites, etc.)

Once the Cortez Cultural Center was established, the Fulks family donated their collection to the Center so that the public could share in the wonder and artistic expression of the ancient people who once roamed our land. . . long before it came to be called Montezuma County.