Colorado: Paleo Indian Bison Kill Site History

[SevenOut]

I had this page from some magazine years ago. What I found interesting are the variety of Paleo Eden Type projectile points recovered from the site. All were found among the 150 or so Bison Kill about 8,000 years ago. I scanned the illustrations I had and suggest if those get your interest: Olsen Chubbuck Bison Kill Site part of the History Colorado / Colorado Encyclopedia

The Central Great Plains were a major Paleo Indian migration route from Canada, from the coast of Alaska and from Asia after the last Glaciers began to melt and opened access into North, Central and South America. Once you understand the migration routes, you also will understand how these sites are found. Even the East Coast had Paleo Indian migration from the Northeast... but nobody seems to want to talk about this route. The skeletal remains are not quite the same and nobody wants to put what they believe in print. This site is no doubt from Asian migration.

Archaeology is written one site at a time. With many of the migration routes along the West and East Coasts, the ocean has risen, concealing them for easy recovery of artifacts left for Paleo Indians entering North America.

Folsom sites are also found in Colorado, East of the Front Range. This information is out there... finding it is much like finding a Paleo Point on the surface while hiking.

"Olsen-Chubbuck Bison Kill Site: Dating to roughly 8200 BCE, the Olsen-Chubbuck Bison Kill Site in Cheyenne County preserves evidence of a Paleo-Indian kill of more than 190 bison. The site was named for the amateur archaeologists Jerry Chubbuck and Sigurd Olsen, who discovered and partially excavated the site in 1957–58 before turning over excavations to a University of Colorado Museum team headed by archaeologist Joe Ben Wheat. The mass kill preserved at the site demonstrates techniques that Native Americans used to hunt bison on the plains for more than 10,000 years."

[sailorjoe]

Thanks for showing us that article. It is interesting but outdated.

[SDhunter]

Thanks for sharing. I like looking at these sites.

[clovisoid]

While many of the Plains paleo-early archaic points are made exceptionally well, the points from a couple of these big kill sites just seem to be made extra-exceptionally well for the type. (A bit like Clovis cache points being larger and better than normal Clovis points.)

Folsom, Goshen, Agate Basin, & Cody/Eden come to mind, there are usually a couple of sites where where the precision of a few of the points almost looks ceremonial. I remember chatting with a well known knapper, and the planning/execution to make a perfect Eden took a lot more time than a normal well made Eden.

[SevenOut]

Clovisoid... I am under the impression, correct or not, that Paleo to Historical Native Americans had many options of producing utility and 'showmanship' projectiles.

Not everyone within a group could make perfect projectile points. If any at all. Material varies in the structure to work. Talent varies. Styles vary. Fluting techniques had to vary with the platform to percussion flake the flute and how to secure the almost finished blade and not break it. Modern flint knappers now can use tempered copper and copper billets to knock off large blanks off of larger nodules. I cannot imagine any individuals carrying a bag full of antlers and billets and material along for a major hunt.

Preparing a Folsom to be fluted, must also been a skill set that was not necessary. A thicker point would be stronger, than a thinner point and fluted to fit into a handle. A handle that would be reused as the blade was sharpened so often, it was too short to be of any further use. Large flakes are sharper and disposable, take less time to manufacture in seconds, versus fifteen to twenty minutes for a common grade blade and then need to be installed into a handle.

Nomadic groups as these Paleo and Plains Indians were, carried the most important tools. The excess stashed in locations they frequented. When the person that stashed his hoard did not make it back... it was never recovered at the time. I do not recall if at the Folsom sites in Colorado that were buried deeply even have quantities of pressure and percussion flakes among the camp site. Everyone looks for the large items, but I do not know if they kept track of the 'trash pit' or site with scattered flakes.

The west has sites where the obsidian flakes and pressure flakes are scattered everywhere for random campsites. But little at the main pueblos they had trash heaps, to avoid razor edge flakes, flies and hopefully downwind.

I am just thinking out loud, but some stashes contain unfinished blanks and solid material that do not get much interest. To experienced Knappers... and they have their styles and limitations, the trash flakes are enormous to make a small group of tools. Finding the trash pits would be interesting, as well.

I hope others jump in and add their ideas. Clovisoid offered his good ideas. In Western Nebraska and Wyoming are lots of Paleo Sites, but finding a location where the group stayed over the Winter or Summer months is another story. The Blowouts in Western Nebraska which were full of lakes at one time, are full of well made Paleo Points. Obviously, one had to carry a lot of hardware... to bring fowl and mammals back to camp.

[SevenOut]

One point... "point"... I would like to toss out. What was more important to the Paleo Hunters? The stone point or the shaft of the spear? Which would you have more of when walking the plains, replacement points or difficult to find wood to make into shafts?

Many of the nicest blades found in western Nebraska are strays and at kill sites from my experience while speaking with the locals, when I was hunting fossils in the Badlands.

My brother, when flint knapping, spent more time looking for quality material. You had to dig below the Frost Line at the Surface to recover nodules in weathered limestone with 'Sedalia Flint Nodules'. He would knock off a 'peak' in a corner to test the material. If it did not meet his expectations... more work was needed to get better material. I suspect the same with any Stone Age Culture. Good material became valuable to those who controlled the source, as well.

I am just 'thinking Indian' what I would do with the limited resources for water, shelter, food and raw materials. You do not find quality wood for spear shafts in the Great Plains. I would suspect that a Random Kill Site, the projectiles were inserted snug, but in a way the shaft would detach and could be reused by sticking another point onto it.

The climate 8,000 years ago was not like today. How else do you get 100 feet of overburden on a Folsom Site in an area that is not blowing sand into an enclosed valley like the Sand Dunes of Wyoming where Paleo Points are discovered after big winds blow out the sand to expose artifacts. Although today there cannot be too much more to find that has not already been found.

American Indians carried everything they needed. No horses. No Trailers with a Diesel Ford F350. No wheels. It was not until horses were 'reintroduced' to the Americas that Indians had options. Even in the Forests of the East... trails and you walked from Village to Village. Just imagine yourself in the Great Plains running a hundred bison off a Buffalo Jump and then working in the blood, guts, hair, coyotes, hawks, eagles, rats... and then working over the hides and drying meat. Then finding a lake or river to jump into it and clean yourself off, while the flies were after you in mass. Living Indian in some people's imagination is ahhhhhh wonderful. Yeah..., right. Try it.

OK. Sitting at a Campfire, on top of a Butte that offered temporary security in Wyoming and while day dreaming... notice a dust trail in the distance and wondering... who or what was coming? Ooooooh Weeeee. Do I stash my stuff to come back, pack it on my back and get moving at a right angle to the oncoming unknowns? This was their life. You pick up a point in a field, put it into a bag strung around your neck... and keep wandering along, not appreciating what you have discovered, by accident.

[SGT.Digger]

I would think that they would have domesticated pack animals to use as their “F350’s” & “Trailers “ . Wild camels 🐪 horses 🐎 even Buffalo 🦬 dogs 🐕 ect .

[SGT.Digger]

Awesome. There must have been a big village somewhere for all that meat 🍖. I hope they stripped down a football size area to really study their processes . I would like to know what the topography of that area is to see what method they used to kill those .

[SGT.Digger]

I got a couple answers to some points that came to mind . Most of the info I found online is for like colleges and can’t be accessed by the public. It seems the arroyo itself was the trap even though it was very wide or deep and not some big jump or bluff. There was carcasses partially or non butchered beneath piles of butchered bones 🦴. They had an estimate of how much meat was taken and how many people and animals it took to carry the meat ect .

[SevenOut]

There are some great Buffalo Jumps... in Montana. I had a photo album and text written in the 1930's and later sold to a resident in that area, which I can not recall as I am old and this was thirty years ago. On top there were 'stone blinds' where a hunter would lay. They were in a V shape, with the point at the Cliff. The Bison in back would push the Bison in Front over the cliff. (Much like buying tickets to a Baseball Game.)

Again the 'bone bed' was massive and lots of artifacts that were broken or lost is the slippery, fly infested kill site. It was in the central part of Montana where the "Deer and the Antelope" use to play. Some of this reminds me of the long lines at In and Out Burger restaurant in town. Automobiles backed up every day to Load Up of Meat and Potatoes.

What about the Mammoths and Larger Bison antiquus kill sites ? There was a great flood in south Kansas City in the late 1960' on major creeks.
Washed out Bison with big horns. They obviously were not great swimmers then, or today. I did not have a pickup truck, so did not get into the action.

[Fat]

Go the the Loveland Archeology society/Stone Age Fair, show and you can check out most of those points up close and personal.