Exotic possibilities


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Posted by Ballpark Frank (24.237.94.196) on 10:23:16 09/19/14

In Reply to: The spring.. posted by Lynnette

Lynnette,

I've had just enough exposure to research results regarding hunting practices of pre-contact people in the Central and Northern Rockies to be dangerous, but I will still offer a few thoughts.

There are remnant game-drive walls still visible along today's Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, that were used to channel bighorn sheep, elk, or both toward waiting hunters. I've heard Dr. Larry Loendorf describe the creative system developed by the Crow to channel and direct bison to buffalo jumps or groups of waiting hunters. (It was a remarkable use of intense understanding of bison perception and the poor vision of bison to minimize the need for game-drive stations and participating personnel.)

It is not difficult to imagine bison having used the area you traversed to gain shelter from harsh weather and concealment from predators. Pre-history hunters would have known that bison would have to leave the gulleys periodically to forage and visit the spring. The gulleys may have been used as de facto game-drive walls, but the remaining question is exactly how the killing was accomplished. Atlatls and obsidian knives are likely possibilities, but I still have questions about the logistics of the hunt.

The Tukudika (AKA Sheepeaters) or Mountain Shoshone were forced to retreat into the remote mountains near today's Dubois, Wyoming in the mid-1800s by the encroachment of European in-migration. With an understanding of sheep behavior, similar to that exhibited by the Crow regarding bison, the Tukudika developed very creative sheep-drive systems that took advantage of bighorn tendencies to flee upwards toward the safety of rocky areas when threatened. The Tukudika also used a minimalist strategy to deploy personnel at sheep-drive stations. When the fleeing sheep finally crested the ridgeline, they found themselves forced via fencing into a steadily narrowing corral that proceeded down the other side of the ridge. Eventually, they would find themselves in a tight space, where waiting hunters would deliver a killing blow with a club to their head. I have visited one of these sites, and thanks to its relative newness, one can still see most of the system components, although the fencing along the ridgeline is pretty much gone. I find myself wondering if pre-history people at Hudson-Meng developed something similar to hunt bison, but tailored to the unique nature of the quarry.

Another possible method, depending on what the ground underlying the spring is like, would simply be to drive the bison into the spring, where they would get "stuck in the mud". Of course, dragging a bison carcass out of the spring might have been a rather difficult task.

I'm just glad that our society is preserving these sites, and not getting overly enthusiastic about going through everything. Who knows what enhanced capabilities and technologies will be available to us in the coming centuries?

Thanks for posting this very entertaining trip report. You got some great photos, and I very much appreciate your sharing them with us!

Ballpark



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