Featured: Ark of Secrets - Neolithic spirit alive in the Middle Ages

Ark of Secrets - Neolithic spirit alive in the Middle Ages

Random Image


Colmeallie

Hengeworld

Hengeworld

Who's Online

There are currently, 536 guests and 3 members online.

You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here

Sponsors

<< Our Photo Pages >> Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump - Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry in Canada

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 24 May 2009  Page Views: 40611

Multi-periodSite Name: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Country: Canada
NOTE: This site is 33.914 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
Nearest Town: Fort MacLeod, Albert
Latitude: 49.706500N  Longitude: 113.6535W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
5 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

Internal Links:
External Links:

I have visited· I would like to visit

MartinJEley would like to visit

TheCaptain visited on 15th Apr 1989 - their rating: Access: 5

bat400 have visited here

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump The welcome sign with logo. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta, Canada, is the best preserved and most varied prehistoric Game Jump site in the known world. It was in use from at least 3700 BC to the 1800's AD. The site covers over 1400 acres, including the "Gathering Basin," the "Kill Site," and a Camp and Processing area.

A North American Bison (Buffalo) bull will weigh 800 kg and is 3 m from its sharp pointed horns to tail and just under 2 m from hoofs to back hump. In massive herds, this animal was nearly impossible for a few hunters on foot to bring down with stone tipped weapons. But a complex culture used topography and their understanding of Bison behavior to gather, entice, and finally stampede the animals over what is now an 18m high cliff. This hunt was repeated regularly by multiple bands of people who gathered for the job.

The Gathering Basin is a large drainage area west of the cliffs where grass grows heavier than on drier surrounding areas. The ancient hunters augmented this natural area by stacking periodic low piles of stone, probably to anchor brush piles, or mats to provide both hiding places for themselves and visible obstructions that would tend to make the bison move toward the cliff instead of along it. These small cairns can still be seen and start 14 km from the cliff itself.

In historic times the Southern Peigan (Aamsskaapipiikani) people - part of the Blackfoot Indian tribes - told and showed Europeans how they could lure a Bison herd to follow someone mimicking the sound of a bison calf. This is how a naturally gathered herd could be persuaded to move toward the Jump. Others people slowly stalking and surrounding the herd could spook it into a run. At some jump sites, the animals would be killed by the fall. At Head-Smashed-In it is likely that many animals would only be disabled, and would have to be finished off by hunters at the base of the cliff.

As great as the effort to stalk and start the herd was, the job of processing the kill required larger number of people. Digs showed the bone pile at the base of the cliff to be up to10 meters deep! The stench of the kill area in the days following the stampede and the hard labor of butchering is hard to imagine. (The word for these Jump sites in one Plains language translates as "deep bucket of blood.") Mixed among the bones are dart and spear points, and pieces of stone knife blades and choppers. In more recent layers arrowheads are found. On the flat plain below the cliffs digs have revealed the remains of extensive camp sites and stone tools. Hammers were used to crack open large bones for marrow. Tons of heat-cracked rock are found in this area, indicating the large scale boiling of bones and carcass pieces to render fat.

These hunts continued into the area's early historic period. Although by the time ethnic Europeans saw this, the hunt and processing must have dramatically changed. The Plains Indians had integrated the horse into their culture. This and the use of firearms had reduced the necessity of a large number of people to participate in any type of hunt or depend of the Jump itself.

The name of this site comes from a story about a young man who wanted to see the kill "up close" and hid below the cliff in a cleft close by the rock face. It was not secure, and he was found dead by the hunters and teams butchering the kill.

An innovative museum is built into the cliff south of the Kill Site. The area's geography, geology and biology are presented as background to the archeological and anthropological record. This is an amazing site and should not be missed if you are in southern Alberta or northwest Montana.

website

[Information from "Buffalo Tracks," a pamphlet of articles authored and edited by the Archeological Survey of Alberta and the Research Unit of the Historic Sites branch of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a Unesco World Heritage site.]


Note: Several more pictures now in of this intriguing place.
You may be viewing yesterday's version of this page. To see the most up to date information please register for a free account.


Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. At the top of the cliffs where the buffalo were herded over the edge. April 1989 (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by bat400 : The cliff face of the Game Jump. To the west (left) is a large natural basin where bison gathered. On the flat plain below the 18 m high cliffs camps where the meat was processed were made. (5 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Below the cliffs where the buffalo were herded over the edge. There are loads and loads of ancient artefacts just laying around down here - bone, spear points etc. April 1989 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Below the cliffs where the buffalo were herded over the edge. April 1989 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. At the top of the cliffs where the buffalo were herded over the edge. April 1989 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump submitted by thecaptain : Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Mock up of the buffalo at the top of the cliff edge in the interpretive centre. April 1989

Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
Click here to see more info for this site

Nearby sites

Click here to view sites on an interactive map of the area

Key: Red: member's photo, Blue: 3rd party photo, Yellow: other image, Green: no photo - please go there and take one, Grey: site destroyed

Download sites to:
KML (Google Earth)
GPX (GPS waypoints)
CSV (Garmin/Navman)
CSV (Excel)

To unlock full downloads you need to sign up as a Contributory Member. Otherwise downloads are limited to 50 sites.


Turn off the page maps and other distractions

Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 78.8km NE 55° Sundial Medicine Wheel* Ring Cairn
 115.1km NNW 345° Big Rock (Alberta) Rock Art
 128.5km E 79° Fincastle Grazing Reserve Bison Kill Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 131.9km NE 42° Majorville Medicine Wheel* Round Cairn
 136.1km SW 222° Crystal Lakes Golf Course Stonehenge* Modern Stone Circle etc
 158.3km NNW 349° Ootssip'tomowa Look Out Hill* Hill Figure or Geoglyph
 162.9km ESE 114° Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park* Rock Art
 248.3km E 90° Stampede Site Ancient Village or Settlement
 265.9km WSW 243° Priest Lake Pictographs Rock Art
 293.0km SSE 147° First Peoples Buffalo Jump* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 353.4km NW 322° Cataract Creek Petroglyphs* Rock Art
 353.7km SW 234° Indian Painted Rocks (Spokane) Rock Art
 374.1km SSE 160° Megaliths Of Helena* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 447.9km WSW 251° Balance Rock Omak* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 451.1km SW 215° Red Elk Rock Shelter* Rock Art
 469.6km SSW 207° Cooper's Ferry Archaeological Site* Ancient Village or Settlement
 535.0km SSW 206° Snake River Archaeological Site* Rock Art
 560.4km WSW 239° Vantage Petroglyphs* Rock Art
 563.8km SW 229° Columbia Park* Ancient Village or Settlement
 567.7km ENE 58° Wanuskewin Heritage Park* Museum
 574.8km SW 236° Whale Island Petroglyphs Rock Art
 578.5km SSW 206° Hells Canyon Archeological District* Rock Art
 586.2km SSE 157° Obsidian Cliff* Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 589.1km SE 137° Pictograph Caves* Rock Art
 598.1km SW 227° Matalam Ancient Village or Settlement
View more nearby sites and additional images

<< Castellu di Cuntorba

Aspelhorn Huegelgrab 1 >>

Please add your thoughts on this site

Explore Green Men

Explore Green Men

Sponsors

Auto-Translation (Google)

Translate from English into:

"Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
Go back to top of page    Comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
World's largest hoard of carbon dates goes global by bat400 on Saturday, 15 July 2017
(User Info | Send a Message)
Scientists hope pooled records could answer major archaeological questions and map human migration patterns. The world's largest radiocarbon database includes information from archaeological sites near Fort Macleod, Canada.

"Radiocarbon dating has long been used to reveal the age of organic materials — from ancient bones to wooden artefacts. Scientists are now using the amassed dates for wider applications, such as spotting patterns in human migration. And a Canadian database is poised to help researchers around the world to organize this trove of archaeological and palaeontological data, and to address problems that have plagued carbon dating for years.

"Set up in the 1980s, the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) is undergoing an expansion that began in 2014. The database currently holds 70,000 radiocarbon records from 70 countries. The latest effort aims to make the software behind the site open source, making it easier for other research groups to set up their own version of CARD while still contributing core information to the main database. The first such site should come online within the year.

"There are other radiocarbon databases out there, but CARD is by far the largest, says Robert Kelly at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, who is collecting data to contribute to CARD. It’s also the only one so far with global ambitions, he says.

"....to determine the age of a once-living specimen. Researchers need to consider a host of factors during their analyses, including the type of material tested and variations in the rate at which the organic matter incorporated different carbon isotopes, in order to produce an accurate age.

"In the past, this information wasn’t often published alongside carbon dates, says Thomas Stafford, a radiocarbon-dating consultant in Lafayette, Colorado. A global database would ensure that this kind of information accompanies every data point, so that if dates have to be recalculated in the future, they can be, he says.

"A centralized database would also make it easier to find previously published radiocarbon data. “I’ve been working in my area for 20 years, and just last month I found a data set I didn’t know existed,” says Andrew Martindale, an anthropological archaeologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and director of CARD.

"But the most compelling reason for a single large data set, says Kelly, is that it enables data mining. Given enough properly dated archaeological finds, some experts argue that they can start to make careful population estimates and trace how human populations moved over space and time. It’s a new and controversial idea, however.

"Others argue that such data sets can be biased by archaeologists’ interests in particular areas or time periods: an abundance of radiocarbon dates in a given spot or time might reflect a researcher’s focus rather than real demographic change. But the CARD database is getting large enough to iron out such factors, says Kelly.

"In 2015, Martindale and his colleagues used CARD to make the first continent-wide map of human occupation of the Americas over the past 13,000 years1. Martindale plans to mine the data to confirm and quantify North American population changes due to wars or settlement relocations that are currently known only through indigenous traditional storytelling."

Excerpt from:
Title: World's largest hoard of carbon dates goes global
Author: Nicola Jones
Publication: Nature News
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date: Jul 11, 2017
Copyright © 2017, Rights Managed by Nature Publishing Group

For more, see
Nature News.
[ Reply to This ]

Photos from Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Museum by bat400 on Monday, 29 October 2012
(User Info | Send a Message)
See more photos of this site's museum posted by Ojibwa for Native American Netroots at The Daily Kos.
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump by Andy B on Saturday, 22 January 2011
(User Info | Send a Message)
More about this site here:
http://www.abheritage.ca/alberta/en/archaeology/site_profiles_headsmashedin.html
[ Reply to This ]

Your Name: Anonymous [ Register Now ]
Subject:


Add your comment or contribution to this page. Spam or offensive posts are deleted immediately, don't even bother

<<< What is five plus one as a number? (Please type the answer to this question in the little box on the left)
You can also embed videos and other things. For Youtube please copy and paste the 'embed code'.
For Google Street View please include Street View in the text.
Create a web link like this: <a href="https://www.megalithic.co.uk">This is a link</a>  

Allowed HTML is:
<p> <b> <i> <a> <img> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <tt> <li> <ol> <ul> <object> <param> <embed> <iframe>

We would like to know more about this location. Please feel free to add a brief description and any relevant information in your own language.
Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.