Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump: Alberta's UNESCO bison-jump site

Heritage site
The Deep History Of The Great Plains
Source: The Deep History Of The Great Plains by Stefan Milo

Site mentioned

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💥 Head-Smashed-In in southern Alberta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a bison jump used repeatedly from the Archaic through the historic period. Drive lanes funnelled animals off a cliff, creating a large processing area and dense bone beds below. Crow and other Plains accounts describe two young men donning bison hides to lead the herd while others startled them into a stampede. The video argues that these hunts were major communal occasions for the whole community and for individual participants. 🦬

Key facts

  • Head-Smashed-In, in southern Alberta, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a bison jump used repeatedly from the Archaic through the historic period.
  • Negative topography and constructed drive lanes funnelled bison off a cliff, with a large processing area and accumulated bones below the jump.
  • Ethnohistoric accounts, including Crow and other Plains groups, describe two young men donning bison hides to lead animals toward the drive lanes while others startled the herd into a stampede.
  • The video argues that these hunts were major communal occasions for the whole community and for individual participants.
  • Bison were driven over the edge in large numbers, producing dense bone accumulations at the base of the cliff.

Related stories

Sources

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jumpen.wikipedia.org
The now disused buffalo jump is a UNESCO world heritage site in an area where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains begin to rise from the prairie.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jumpwhc.unesco.org
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is one of the oldest, most extensive and best preserved sites that illustrate communal hunting techniques and of the way of life ...
Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump Stock Photosgettyimages.com
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Alberta. For nearly six thousand years, this location was used by Indigenous Plains ...
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Sitetravelalberta.com
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is among the world's oldest and best-preserved buffalo jumps. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a place that must be ...
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site | Head ...headsmashedin.ca
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site that preserves and interprets over 6,000 years of Plains Buffalo ...
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