Cooperation and Order among Communal Bison Hunters

Summary

This paper discusses the trajectories and intersections of cooperative practices and ordering strategies among prehistoric communal bison hunters. Utilizing the vast and ancient record of bison hunting in the region and particularly in Montana, the paper specifically focuses on the rise of large-scale bison harvests in the northwestern Plains of North America, and the effect of hunting technology on social cooperation at various scales (kin, band, supra-band). As well, the paper delves on the institution of strategies for managing the success of surplus production for consumption, storage, and exchange. The equally vast historic and ethnographic records of bison hunters in the region are tapped to unpack the role of gender in the structure of individual, kin, and non-kin cooperative practices and ordering strategies along the economic, ritual, and political realms of social life.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Archaeological Perspectives on the Evolution of Forager Cooperation

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14499