11,500-Year-Old Bison Butchering Site Discovered in Oklahoma

Western Digs ^ | June 8, 2015 | Blake de Pastino

[Rannug]

Just a little ways into Wyoming on I90 from SD, there is a buffalo kill spot. The Indians stampeded them over a cliff, and..........

[Ditter]

Try to imagine butchering a buffalo with stone tools.

[pa_dweller]

Related:

Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump

A fascinating book about it is Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains

[john mirse]

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...

*******

And to change the subject, it is probably safe to say that another 11,500 years will quietly pass before the good people of Oklahoma will see Oklahoma University playing for a national college football championship. Go Notre Dame!

[gleeaikin]

Thanks again for such lovely links.

[gleeaikin]

I don’t know if they had them but obsidian shards can be as sharp as glass.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[Ditter]

I have a huge collection of Indian stone tools that I have picked up myself in south Texas. They have an edge but nothing like having a metal knife.

[DungeonMaster]

5500 years before “Let there be light”.

[eartrumpet]

Skinning an elk one year, my boy asked if we could use stone tools. I am nowhere near a knapper, but I can whack an obsidian nodule with a rock. I got a wedge knocked off and it was ridiculously sharp, sharper than any steel blade dreamed of being. Skinning the elk was a breeze, except a little too much pressure would make a slice through the hide without knowing it. A steel blade will give feedback that you are hitting hide now, obsidian will simply cut on through.

They have used obsidian blades for eye surgery.