The Dakota (Sioux) Tribes in particular kept extensive histories such as the one shown above. These are called winter counts because the tribe historian would depict the most memorable event of the year with a drawing each winter.
The common material for most of these winter counts is deerskin and since they were highly valued as a record of the tribe, many still survive.
When I was a young man, I had an opportunity to study these at the feet of a Dakota elder. Without the elder versed in the oral history traditions, interpreting each pictograph becomes a matter of speculation.
With the elder, however, one understands how extensively our early natives altered the environment. A raging controversy in the 1820's was the practice of harvesting buffalo by driving them over a cliff. The elders were appalled by the practice because they had seen years of shortage in the bison herds. The young wouldn't listen because that particular era was a time of plenty.
Long story short is that the bison herds were diminished by the natives at least a half century or so before the evil white man got into the act.