CANADA - Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Postcard sent by me JasonDavid in a Direct Swap

Sent- 03 of December of 2017.

INSCRIPTION/INSCRITO: 1981

In south-west Alberta, the remains of marked trails and an aboriginal camp, and a tumulus where vast quantities of buffalo (American Bison) skeletons can still be found, are evidence of a custom practised by aboriginal peoples of the North American plains for nearly 6,000 years. Using their excellent knowledge of the topography and of buffalo behaviour, they killed their prey by chasing them over a precipice; the carcasses were later carved up in the camp below.

The significance of the landscape of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump lies in its historical, archaeological and scientific interest. The deep, undisturbed layers of animal bones (largely American Bison) represent nearly 6,000 years of continuous occupation with one lengthy period of unexplained interrupted hunting. This landscape is an outstanding example of subsistence hunting that continued into the late 19th century and which still forms part of the ‘traditional knowledge base’ of the Plains nations. It throws valuable light on the way of life and practices of traditional hunting cultures elsewhere in the world.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is located in southern Alberta, Canada, where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains. It is the best preserved example of the communal hunting techniques and of the way of life of the Plains people based on the vast herds of bison that existed in North America for more than five millennia. A remarkable testimony of pre-European contact life in North America, this bison jump bears witness to a sophisticated custom practiced by Indigenous people of the North American plains. These people, drawing on their excellent understanding of bison behaviour and topography, used natural barriers such as coulees, depressions and hills to funnel these animals into drive lanes that ended at a precipice, over which the bison were stampeded. The animals’ carcasses were then butchered in a camp set up below the cliff to provide food and the materials for clothing, tools and dwellings. The development of complex social and technological systems to systematically and repeatedly harvest the herds in a communal hunt also nourished spiritual interests. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is the most outstanding of the surviving bison jumps in the Americas in use from approximately 5,800 years BP until AD 1850. On this grassy, windswept 3,626-ha landscape can be seen the drive lanes that led the bison toward the jump (including the remains of stone markers used to direct the bison toward the cliff), the 10-m-high cliff face that served as the actual jump, the foot of the cliff where numerous undisturbed stratified layers of bone and cultural deposits are found, and the area encompassing the many butchering camps established through the millennia.

 Thank you Jason!