Posted on 11/16/2008 9:33:01 AM PST by BGHater
UNION, Ky. -- Archaeologists have dug up and will display evidence of an American Indian bison hunt that happened hundreds of years ago in northern Kentucky.
Evidence at the site shows hunters killed and butchered the animals with stone tools,leaving the bones and tools behind.
The bones were discovered in Big Bone Creek several years ago but left there.
Staff members from the Cincinnati Museum Center and volunteers spent a week in August digging up the artifacts.
Glenn Storrs, head curator for vertebrate paleontology at the center, got permission from the state to dig while the creek's water was low.Though it was already low, part of the river had to be dammed and water pumped out.
"This is one of the very few documented bison hunt-and-kill sites in the Ohio Valley, so it's very exciting," Storrs told The Kentucky Enquirer.
And the job turned out to be more than he expected.
"It became a very exciting discovery, really," he said. "What started out as just a few bones became 500 to 600 bones and bone fragments of four to five bison."
The tools and bones from the site are between 200 and 600 years old and date to the Fort Ancient culture.
Storrs and his team believe the hunters either drove the bison to the creek or cornered them there before killing them, he said.
The artifacts indicate that the hunters used the tools to break the bison skulls on flat stones in the creek bed to get to the brains, which were used in tanning, and the tongue, a delicacy.
Bison bones have been found at Big Bone before, but most had been washed down from the original kill sites.
The archaeologists are still analyzing the bones,Storrs said, and they will eventually be displayed at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...
‘They killed the animals with stone tools and carved them up on the spot, leaving the bones and tools behind.’
Those Savages!
lol. ping.
. . .along with 35 absentee ballots for Al Franken
Why would they leave their tools behind? Not very responsible Indians.
But this can’t be.
We all know that Indians were the first environmentalists and the first animal rights people in this country.
Did you know that the actor in that picture wasn’t even an Indian? A white guy making money portraying the oppressed, more power to him.
Lol. I had no idea.
Bones and tools left behind? Compare that with a modern slaughterhouse in which even the bones, blood and offal have commercial value and are put to use.
Very interesting! I am presently reading a book entitled “Boone a Biography” by Robert Morgan.
In this book, Morgan discusses the abundance of wildlife, even bison in Kanta Ke (pps 84-85) that were encountered by Boone and his colleagues.
Very good reading!
MFO
KFB! Kentucky Fried Bison.
“They went that-a-way.”
A good question to ask is, “And then what happened?”
After the kill, they had to process the dead bison before the meat rotted.
This is not easy.
When the hides were removed, they were staked out over an ant hill, to get rid of the fleas. Then usually the fur was scraped off, and they were tanned by boiling the brains and some other organs inside the large intestines, which was rubbed into the hides before they were rolled up to age. Once aged, the muck was scraped off and the hides were pulled through rope loops to soften them by breaking up some of the fibers.
This process was done a lot in the great plains, because leather and stone were the most abundant materials. The leather was used as tenting, clothing, footwear, rope, carrying containers, etc.
While this process was going on, the meat that wasn’t cooked and eaten immediately would be cut into thin strips and dried over fires or in the sun, to be used for pemmican. It was pounded into a near powder, then mixed with melted animal fat and other ingredients like berries, if available, before being stored in leather pouches. Properly made it could last about a year.
This implies that an awful lot of work went on near this bison kill.
Plus they all got along in perfect harmony with each other, until us evil white men showed up.
The bison packed out of their Ky digs and moved west ‘cause the Eastcoast Indians were so mean to them.
Enough of those tools made of stone can become pretty heavy. Instead of hauling stones away from the site,they probably hauled meat.
The guy portraying the Indian is actually an Italian from Italy.
Never thought of that. I love FR. Great minds playing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.