The newly found feature of butchered bones, named Jake Bluff East, is the fourth -- and historically most recent -- Paleoindian bison-hunting site to be found along this stretch of the Beaver River. (Map courtesy Carlson et al., PaleoAmerica)
Posted on 06/10/2015 3:13:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A stretch of floodplain in northwestern Oklahoma, already known for its profusion of prehistoric hunting sites, has turned up new find: a scatter of butchered bison bones dating back nearly 11,500 years -- extending the evidence of bison hunting in the area by centuries, archaeologists say...
Together, these artifacts lend new depth to the already ample record of ancient hunts -- including three bison-kill sites that are even older -- in a region of the southern Plains known as the Beaver River complex...
The latest find was made on a narrow bench of land between two arroyos by Carlson's colleague, Dr. Leland Bement, while surveying previously discovered bison-kill sites nearby.
The three other sites in the complex are all found within a range of just 700 meters along the Beaver River, Bement noted, and the oldest of them is more than 12,000 years old, dating to the era of the widespread Clovis culture...
The sites discovered here are noteworthy for the hunting technique that they reveal: the use of so-called "arroyo traps," which the archaeologists say is the oldest known method of large-scale bison hunting... "Each kill was of between 30 and 60 animals."
Although the newly found scattering of bones doesn't include any evidence of the kill itself, their fragmentation, along with the presence of stone tools, indicate that they were processed by prehistoric hunters, Carlson said...
What's more, flakes of charcoal found among the bones yielded radiocarbon dates that fell within the same range suggested by ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the bison bone: 10,020 radiocarbon years before the present, or between 11,300 and 11,650 calendar years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at westerndigs.org ...
The newly found feature of butchered bones, named Jake Bluff East, is the fourth -- and historically most recent -- Paleoindian bison-hunting site to be found along this stretch of the Beaver River. (Map courtesy Carlson et al., PaleoAmerica)
Very cool. I grew up in eastern Oklahoma and always wanted to explore the panhandle areas more.
I would think an 11,500 year old bison would be pretty tough. And hard to butcher.
Wily, able to outwit or outfight predators for 110 centuries? Probably have to shoot ‘em from a chopper.
:’)
Thanks for posting. Interesting.
Nice collection of hot buffler links ya got there, Pilgrim! ;-)
I’d think you would have to slow cook the meat for a few centuries.
At 11,500 years this is the oldest bison ever!
;)
When I lived in Western Kansas, I made it down to the Oklahoma Panhandle a couple of times.
It was the roughest country I ever remember seeing. For some reason, I liked it. If there were any way I could have made a living there, I probably would have moved.
Well, you can’t blame the white folks for THAT one! :-)
My mother went to high school in Leedey, OK, a little to the southwest of that area. They were called the Leedey Bison.
So how many 11,500 year old bison have shown up to be butchered?
Gosh, those poor 11,500 yo bison, being slaughtered like that.
No respect for the elders, even back then in Oklahoma. Sad. I blame Woody Guthrie.
A Texan could still make great barbecue from it :)
We lived in the New Mexico-Oklahoma-Texas area back in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The most terrifying time I remember was going from Clayton NM to Boyce City OK and crossing the dry Beaver River on a long ONE LANE wooden bridge. That bridge scared me to death as it looked to be very ramshakle.
They slow down quite a bit after age 11,100.
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