Final Report of the 1985 and 1986 Field Season at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Alberta

Author(s): Jack Brink; Bob Dawe

Year: 1989

Summary

Archaeological field work at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (HSI) continued in the summers of 1985 and 1986. Field studies were conducted by staff of the Archaeological Survey of Alberta as part of the ongoing research associated with the development of a public interpretation facility at this site. During the two previous field seasons, 1983 and 1984, archaeological attention was focused on the regions of the site complex which were to be disturbed by construction of the various facilities associated with the interpretive centre (Brink et ale 1985, 1986). By the time the 1985 field season began, the investigation of these areas was essentially complete. As a result, the focus for continued field studies shifted to the pursuit of a number of research problems. All research studies revolved around the central goal of exploring aspects of the site which were poorly or incompletely understood. Advances in these areas were considered essential for the production of the interpretive program. This report will present the results of all studies conducted in 1985 and 1986. Preliminary reports on these results have already appeared (Brink et al 1987; Wright and Brink 1986).

The report contains a first chapter that describes background and organizational information about this study and how it fits into the long-term investigations at the site. Chapter 2 is a review of the excavations: the number and placement of the units, the total area of excavation, and the methods of recovery and analysis. For the most part, our methodology differs little from that employed in the 1983 and 1984 seasons; however, some changes inevitably occur as more is learned about the site and its archaeological contents.

The third chapter describes the soils, stratigraphy and chronology of the 1985/86 excavations. Although soils have been mentioned briefly in previous reports, only in the 1985/86 seasons, with the detection of a stratified area of the processing site, has the topic acquired greater importance. Likewise, the dating of the cultural deposits achieves new relevance, due to the apparent temporal separation of materials spaced throughout the 50 cm cultural horizon. Hence, greater effort was made to date the approximate time periods, and events, contained within this horizon.

Chapter 4 presents the results of the excavation and analysis of the features encountered during excavation of the processing area. As in previous years, features continue to be a major component of our examination of bison processing, and it is clear from our widespread testing of the prairie below the jump that features occur in great number and with considerable variety.

Chapter 5 of the report is the analysis of the fire-broken rock recovered from the processing area excavations. This material occurs across the site in massive amounts and consists primarily of imported and, hence, probably curated materials. Thus, it is of considerable importance to our understanding of the events which transpired at the site. While fire-broken rock is often accorded a low status in other archaeological analyses, we are of the opinion that this material holds valuable clues to the organization and operation of bison processing, at least at Head-Smashed-In.

Chapter 6 is devoted to analysis and interpretation of the faunal remains recovered from both the processing area and the spring channel excavations. Using NISP, MNE and MAU measures of quantification, the structure of a bison processing assemblage is presented. Clearly, the HSI assemblage from the prairie level is in a poor state of preservation. Accordingly, considerable attention is given to examining the taphonomy and differential preservation of the faunal material. The major focus of faunal interpretation rests on an examination of our materials in relation to the models of carcass utility first proposed by Binford (1978). Our data are juxtaposed to Binford's indices of economic utility. Furthermore, our own recent work with a small sample of contemporary bison carcasses has provided new data on the anatomy of bison. These data likewise are employed to help shed light on the utilization of bison faunal elements at a communal butcher/processing site. Finally, the faunal material from the HSI processing area, spring channel and kill site are compared and contrasted, both with each other and with a selection of other bison kill/butchery sites from the northern Plains.

Chapter 7 details the lithic artifacts recovered from the 1985/86 excavations. Artifact descriptions by major functional/technological classes are presented, as are detailed descriptions of the various raw material types recognized at HSI. Since the results of these two seasons' work have provided us with an opportunity to examine some degree of temporal separation of the artifacts, a major focus of the lithic analysis is an attempt to discern any changes in the lithic assemblage throughout the Late Prehistoric Period. Again following the example of our previous reports, we have provided considerable metric and non-metric detail of the lithic assemblage. This is done in the belief that major site reports can perform a service to the archaeological community by providing the kinds of data often needed for intersite comparisons - data often frustratingly absent from other site reports.

Chapter 8 reports on the ceramic and historical artifacts recovered from our excavations. Since these materials occur in small numbers at HSI, this section of the report is necessarily brief and essentially descriptive.

Chapter 9 presents a brief discussion of what we feel are some of the more important ideas and implications arising from the results of the 1985/86 field seasons.

This tDAR resource originally was a citation record migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. In 2015 it was updated and further enhanced as part of the Center for Digital Antiquity's efforts to improve the content of tDAR.

Cite this Record

Final Report of the 1985 and 1986 Field Season at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Alberta. Jack Brink, Bob Dawe. Archaeological Survey of Alberta, Manuscript Series ,16. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: Archaeological Survey of Alberta. 1989 ( tDAR id: 148898) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8BK1DFN

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 610 to 790 (Based on C-13 date 1250+/-90)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -114.439; min lat: 49.131 ; max long: -112.473; max lat: 50.096 ;

Record Identifiers

NADB document id number(s): 550848

NADB citation id number(s): 000000068333

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