Rancher Archaeologist : A Career in Two Different Worlds [1 ed.] 9781607813309, 9781607813293

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Rancher Archaeologist

Rancher Archaeologist A Career in Two Different Worlds

George C. Frison

The University of Utah Press

Salt Lake City

Copyright © 2014 by The University of Utah Press. All rights reserved. The Defiance House Man colophon is a registered trademark of the University of Utah Press. It is based on a 4-foot-tall Ancient Puebloan pictograph (late PIII) near Glen Canyon, Utah. 18 17 16 15 14     1 2 3 4 5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Frison, George C.  Rancher archaeologist : a career in two different worlds / George C. Frison.   pages cm  Includes bibliographical references and index.   isbn 978-1-60781-329-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-1-60781-330-9 (ebook) 1. Frison, George C.  2. Archaeologists — Montana — Biography.  3. Archaeology — West (U.S.)  4. Ranchers — Wyoming — Biography.  I. Title.   CC115.F75A3 2014  930.1092  — dc23  [B] 2014007958 Cover photo by Margaret Jodry Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I dedicate this book to my paternal grandparents, Jacob and Margaret Frison, who endowed me with a love for the mountains and plains and a respect for the animals that dwell there; to Dr. William T. Mulloy, University of Wyoming, and Dr. James B. Griffin, University of Michigan, who helped me along the path of higher education; to my spouse, June Frison, who departed this world just 17 days short of our sixty-fifth wedding anniversary; and to my daughter, Carol Placek, who in early childhood was uprooted from normal family life and injected into the frantic world of a nontraditional, college student father.

Contents List of Illustrations ix List of Abbreviations xv Foreword, by William “Bill” Woodcock xvii Acknowledgments xix Introduction 1 1. The Background 5 2. The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 26 3. The Post–World War II Ranching and Avocational Archaeology Years 38 4. The Back-to-School Years 58 5. Beginning an Academic Career 66 6. High Plains and Rocky Mountain Prehistory 83 7. Early Paleoindian Sites and Pleistocene Fauna 123 8. Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian and Early Plains Archaic 146 9. Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 161 10. Foreign Travels and Other International Activities 183 11. Activities in Professional Organizations 207 12. Other Sites and Projects 214 13. Some Lingering and Final Thoughts 258 Appendix: Milestones 271 References Cited 275 Index 293 vii

Illustrations

Figures 1.1. Grizzly bear, bison, and human figure painted on a cave wall. 10 1.2. Native American burial platform in a ponderosa pine tree. 14 1.3. William Shakespeare and Carol Frison wearing his eagle feather headdress. 17 1.4. Gray wolf in a steel trap. 21 2.1. Memorable event in World War II. 35 3.1. Making final plans to start investigation at the Horner site in 1949. 41 3.2. Projectile points from the Horner site at Cody, Wyoming. 43 3.3. Spring Creek Cave and some of its special artifacts. 48 3.4. Leigh Cave in Ten Sleep Creek Canyon. 53 3.5. Coal Draw site area and a pecked figure on a sandstone column at the location of the carved stone tubes. 55 4.1. Reconstructed Crow Indian ceramic vessel from the Ten Sleep Creek site. 64 5.1. Base of the flagpole at Fort Phil Kearny. 73 5.2. Log structure in the Sunlight Basin in northwest Wyoming ­identified as part of a mountain sheep–trapping complex. 76 5.3. Glenrock Buffalo Jump and bones in arroyos at the base. 78 5.4. Bison bone storage facilities at the University of Wyoming in 1971. 81 6.1. Kobold Buffalo Jump in south-central Montana, Yonkee and

Pelican Lake projectile points from the Late Plains Archaic levels, and Late Prehistoric points from the top level. 84 6.2. Ruby site bison trap complex and the edge of the bone bed and postholes. 86 6.3. Remnant of the Ruby site bone bed and postholes for the corral and projectile points from the corral and drive lane. 88 6.4. Karst or sinkhole used for a bison trap at the Vore site in northeast Wyoming. 92 ix

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Illustrations

6.5. Bison bones at the Vore site bison trap. 93 6.6. Male and female Bison antiquus skulls from a site in the Shirley Basin uranium-mining area in central Wyoming. 99 6.7. Agate Basin–type projectile points from the Agate Basin site. 100 6.8. Bison bones from the Agate Basin component at the Agate Basin site. 101 6.9. Topography of the Moss Agate arroyo area looking west. 103 6.10. Present-day parabolic sand dune in the Casper site area. 104 6.11. Hell Gap–type projectile points from the Casper site. 105 6.12. Bison antiquus skeletal units and bison skulls and pelvic units at the Casper site. 106 6.13. Artist’s unrealistic drawing of the events at the Horner site. 109 6.14. Bone bed exposed and after removal of single bones during the

University of Wyoming 1977–1978 excavations at the Horner site. 112 6.15. Male Bison antiquus skull from the Finley site. 114 6.16. Butte-top location of the Mill Iron site in Montana and projectile points from the bone bed and camp area. 116 6.17. Folsom points from the Hanson site. 118 6.18. Hawken site. 121 7.1. Bison bone bed from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site. 126 7.2. Elk antler tool and bone needle from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site. 127 7.3. Male Bison antiquus skull upon exposure and after curation from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site. 129 7.4. Clovis projectile point found by Don Colby and a Clovis point in situ near Bone Pile No. 1 at the Colby Mammoth Kill site. 130 7.5. Removing a mammoth skull from the Colby site in 1973. 132 7.6. Mammoth Bone Pile No. 2 at the Colby Mammoth Kill site. 133 7.7. Refitted biface reduction flakes from the Sheaman site. 139 7.8. Carved bone cylinders from the Sheaman site and the Anzick site. 140 7.9. Camelops humerus from the Casper site and metatarsus from the Carter/Kerr-McGee site. 142 7.10. Vertical profile and horizontal plan view of Natural Trap Cave and a metal grid placed over the entrance. 144



Illustrations xi

8.1. Schiffer Cave site. 148 8.2. Location of the Medicine Lodge Creek site. 150 8.3. Vertical distribution of Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian artifacts from the Medicine Lodge Creek site. 152 8.4. Vertical distribution of Middle Plains Archaic, Late Plains

Archaic, and Late Prehistoric artifacts from the Medicine Lodge Creek site. 154 8.5. Paint Rock V Rockshelter and its Pryor Stemmed points. 157 9.1. Mountain sheep trap in an arroyo bottom in northwest ­Wyoming. 165 9.2. Mountain sheep trap in open flat country in northwest ­Wyoming. 166 9.3. Mountain sheep skull found in the fork of a lodgepole pine tree in northwest Wyoming. 168 9.4. 8,200-year-old animal-trapping net made of two-strand twisted Juniperus sp. bark. 170 9.5. Mountain sheep restrained under a drop net. 171 9.6. Middle Plains Archaic–age pithouse at the Dead Indian Creek site in the Sunlight Basin of northwest Wyoming. 173 9.7. Beehive Butte site and a large slab-lined fire pit in the Avonlea cultural level. 174 9.8. Projectile points from the Avonlea component at the Beehive Butte site and from a component of similar age at Medicine Lodge Creek. 175 9.9. Small animal snare found in a dry cave in southwest ­Wyoming. 178 9.10. Suggested chronology for the Northwestern Plains and central Rocky Mountains. 180 9.11. Geographic coverage of several of the author’s archaeological sites. 181 10.1. Archaeologists at the Ludinovo mammoth site in Russia. 192 10.2. Archaeologist and mammoth expert Zoia Aleksandrova Abramova and a mammoth bone structure at the Ludinovo site. 193 10.3. Experimental Clovis projectile point used to penetrate freshly killed elephant carcasses at Hwange National Park in ­Zimbabwe. 197 10.4. Author at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe with experi­ mental weaponry. 198

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Illustrations

10.5. Cutting African elephant hide with a quartzite flake tool. 199 11.1. Probable Early Historic Plains Indian conical pole war lodge structures from Wyoming. 211 12.1. Witness profile at Area 1 at the Hell Gap site, August 18, 1966, with a photo of a Goshen projectile point. 222 12.2. Projectile points of the Late Paleoindian Lusk Cultural Complex from the Betty Greene site in east-central Wyoming. 225 12.3. Carnivore-modified bison humerus and radius from the Vore site. 227 12.4. Photo and drawing of the Dinwoody Tradition pecked figure at the Coal Draw site. 228 12.5. Two carved and polished stone tubes from the Coal Draw site. 230 12.6. Detail of incised figures on the stone tube from the Coal Draw site in Figure 12.5. 231 12.7. Stone circles or tipi rings covering a small mesa-like butte in central Wyoming. 236 12.8. Stone circles near the Piney Creek site camping area. 237 12.9. Small stone circles at the Piney Creek site. 238 12.10. Part of a cairn line in central Wyoming. 240 12.11. “Hole in the Wall” country in north-central Wyoming. 241 12.12. Prehistoric quarry pits and elk antler digging tool at the Spanish Point site. 244 12.13. Carved steatite vessel and ceramic vessel. 246 12.14. Canid skulls from the Boxelder Creek site and the Vore site. 247 12.15. Canid skulls from the Boxelder Creek site. 249 12.16. Conical pole tipis in 1920 near the old Frison family ranch. 250 12.17. Cribbed-log living structure in a secluded patch of timber in northwest Wyoming. 251 12.18. Living juniper tree missing strips of sapwood taken for bow

manufacture and drawings of a mountain sheep horn, sinew-­ backed bow. 253 12.19. Map of Wyoming showing basins and uplifts. 256 12.20. Paleoindian artifacts from the Scoggin site in Great Divide Basin. 257 13.1. Signing the “book” at the National Academy of Sciences, April 1998. 260



Illustrations xiii

13.2. Celebrating the event with daughter, Carol, and wife, June. 261 13.3. Male Bison antiquus skull from the Casper Hell Gap–age site. 269

Table 9.1. Comparison of calibrated calendar years before the present and bc/ad with uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present. 182

Abbreviations

AAA American Anthropological Association AB Agate Basin AMQUA American Quaternary Association AMS Accelerator mass spectrometry BBHC Buffalo Bill Historical Center BLM Bureau of Land Management CCC Civilian Conservation Corps CKM Carter/Kerr-McGee EPA Early Plains Archaic FMP Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian GTNP Grand Teton National Park GYE Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem HG Hell Gap JLAP Jackson Lake Archaeological Project LP Late Prehistoric LPA Late Plains Archaic LSAF Loveland Stone Age Fair MAS Montana Archaeological Society MLC Medicine Lodge Creek MNI Minimum number of individuals MPA Middle Plains Archaic NAS National Academy of Sciences NEH National Endowment for the Humanities NGS National Geographic Society NPS National Park Service NSF National Science Foundation PA Plains Anthropologist PAC Plains Anthropological Conference RCYBP Radiocarbon years before present SAA Society for American Archaeology SI Smithsonian Institution UM University of Michigan xv

xvi

Abbreviations

U.S. Geological Survey USGS UTM Upper Twin Mountain (Colorado) UW University of Wyoming WAF Wyoming Archaeological Foundation WAS Wyoming Archaeological Society WGF Wyoming Game and Fish Department WPA Work Projects Administration WRC Wyoming Recreation Commission WWII World War II YNP Yellowstone National Park

Foreword

I was born and grew up on a ranch on the Powder River in southeastern Montana, about 40 miles due east of Miles City and about 150 miles northeast of where George Frison grew up in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. We lived in a sod-roofed stone-and-log house that my father and a hired man built in 1934, along with a bunkhouse, a root cellar, a ­machine shop, a coal shed, and a number of corrals and other buildings. We cut our own ice and dug our own coal. A windmill pumped our water and generated electricity stored in the batteries under our floor. We were usually pretty well snowed in during January and February. Horses pulled the sleds of hay that we fed our cows during those months. I was given a horse for my fifth birthday and a single-shot .22 rifle for my sixth birthday. We lived an 1880s sort of life. Our life in Montana was very like the life George Frison and his family lived in Wyoming. World War II took my uncle to the Pacific. My father was hired by the U.S. Army to make aerial maps of the west coast of the Americas, and some of southern Europe, and to organize and train other aerial photographers. My mother was left in Montana to run the ranch with the help of her female relatives, draft dodgers from New York, and several elderly Cheyenne men and women. After World War II my uncle drank and chased women for several years, my mother was very tired of ranching, my father was not released from service until 1948, and I was in school in Miles City. When I graduated from high school I left the ranch and Miles City and went to Caltech in Pasadena, California; then to Pomona College in Claremont, California; and then on to law school, graduate school, and a bit of teaching at the University of Montana in Missoula. My wife, Charlene, my daughter, Jennifer, and I enjoyed five very peaceful years in Missoula, but then the war in Vietnam began to heat up, so we decided to move to Berkeley, California, which seemed to be a center of action. I took a job finding antiwar manuscripts for a book publisher. Fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time and found some that sold very well. One was a book of essays about xvii

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the social responsibility of scientists by 24 Nobel Prize–winning scientists. Another was a work by three professors of biochemistry, one at Harvard, one at Berkeley, and one at the University of Washington, that exposed Operation Ranch Hand, Agent Orange and our military use of it in Vietnam, and most importantly, the future probable consequences. Books like these quickly lent me a reputation that led to job offers. In 1970 I took a job with Academic Press, then the world’s largest publisher of English-language bioscience books and journals. Publishing about 135 quarterly journals and 450 books a year, Academic Press could not expand its list in the bio­sciences without sacrificing quality, so it hired me to publish bioscience with one hand and with the other to explore totally new possibilities. One new possibility that I explored was archaeology. George Frison and I first met on May 6, 1972, in the lobby of the Americana Hotel in Bal Harbor, Florida. The two of us and some 400 others were attending the thirty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I had a card table set up on the east side of the lobby displaying Lewis Binford’s An Archaeological Perspective, Charles McGimsey’s Public Archaeology, and some promotional material about the press. George came into the lobby from the west side with his wife and a couple of students. As he ambled across to me I remember noting his boots, his Levi’s, and his buttoned-up white shirt: he looked like a cowboy. He asked what we were doing there. I explained that we were a publisher selling books and looking for authors to publish. One thing led to another. Over the years since, I published seven of George’s books and found very good publishers for the several that I could not do myself. And in the 40+ years since 1972, Professor Frison and I have spent quite a lot of time together just visiting, reminiscing, arguing, eating, talking on the phone, driving around in Wyoming and Montana visiting his sites, driving around in the Bighorns looking for rocks, enjoying one another’s company. George is in his mid-80s now, and I am in my early 70s. It is fair to say that we both probably have more of a past than a future. When George phoned and asked me to write a foreword for this book, I agreed to do so, with pleasure. I am more than a bit in awe of George. I have enjoyed and found instructive reading this account of his life. I believe you will too. Enjoy the book, Bill Woodcock

Acknowledgments

More than once I was tempted to abandon this writing project, but fortunately, colleagues Marcel Kornfeld and Mary Lou Larson were always close by to convince me otherwise. In addition, two secretaries, Keith Kanbe and Jacqueline Hauptman were always available to restore my computer to a working condition. In addition to the individuals and research-supporting entities mentioned and/or referenced in the text are many others that contributed toward my recollections of life from early childhood to well past retirement. To include all of these would require many pages, so I can only mention a few. In addition, it is inevitable that many individuals will be overlooked. To these I offer my apologies and hope you will be charitable and overlook my deficiencies. The individuals I mention below are in alphabetical order. Bob Barber of Glenrock, Wyoming, provided us with a tractor and scraper at the Casper site. Kenneth Barger of Worland, Wyoming, was owner of the Colby site during my first site work there and helped us in many ways. William Barlow was a rancher in eastern Wyoming, and he and his wife, Bernie, were instrumental in getting access to and supporting my efforts at the Ruby Buffalo Corral. Donald (Don) Boyd is a retired invertebrate paleontologist at the University of Wyoming (UW) and aided me numerous times. Joe Bozovich of Rock Springs, Wyoming, took me on my first visit to the Wardell bison kill site near Big Piney, Wyoming. Caroline Buff of Casper, Wyoming, is the major supporter of the academic interests of the Wyoming Archaeological Society (WAS) and, until poor health intervened, was always first in line to help in excavations. Debra (Debbie) Chastain of Saratoga, Wyoming, helped me at numerous times when I needed small but critical amounts of research funding. Gerald Clark, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) archaeologist in Montana, helped pave the way for investigations at the Mill Iron site near Ekalaka, Montana. Teri Craigie was a Department of Anthropology secretary who could always find time to produce an overdue manuscript. Joseph Cramer of Denver, Colorado, helped me many times with monetary support, although he always demanded adequate proof of ­results. xix

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Acknowledgments

James ( Jim) Davis and his wife, Jodell, helped in innumerable ways with the Medicine Lodge Creek site. Harry Earl is a retired ranch hand from eastern Wyoming who donated many hours to help with the Hell Gap site materials. Tex English of Casper provided us with badly needed storage space for the skeletal materials from the Casper site. Kathy Fowler is a retired Department of Anthropology secretary who could produce prodigious amounts of work on short notice. Terrill Gibbons and his son, Clay Gibbons, helped us out in many critical situations when we needed the loan of a piece of heavy equipment. Harris and Betty Greene of Torrington, Wyoming, allowed us access to the Betty Greene Paleoindian site. The Earnest Hawken family of Sundance, Wyoming, made us welcome at the Hawken bison kill site and resisted all efforts of local collectors to dig in the bone bed to recover artifacts. James ( Jim) and Mary Helen Hendry of Lost Cabin, Wyoming, were loyal supporters of Wyoming archaeology and were always ready to provide room and board to students and professionals alike. Mr. and Mrs. Lance Hill provided lodging and helped feed the crew at the Wardell bison kill site. Zane and Elaine Hilman of Sheridan, Wyoming, are longtime members of the WAS and always ready and willing to support Wyoming archaeology. Preston (Pres) Holder was a professor at the University of Nebraska who encouraged me to break away from ranching and return to school. Ada Jackson of Saratoga had a knack of convincing outsiders to monetarily support Wyoming archaeology. Henry and Clara Jensen of Lysite, Wyoming, were always ready to support students interested in Wyoming archaeology and left a substantial monetary gift to the Wyoming Archaeological Foundation when they passed away. Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Kobold of Kirby, Montana, owned the land at the Kobold Buffalo Jump and allowed me and my crew to camp there and excavate at the site. Robert and Jo Larson of Rock Springs shared their extensive knowledge of western Wyoming and allowed me to analyze a cache of Cody-age artifacts they recovered in the Killpecker dune field. Donald (Don) Lehmer was a professor at Dana College in Omaha, Nebraska, who supported my return to school. Zina McCreery of Ten Sleep, Wyoming, was an outstanding hand with cattle and sheep and was the best calf roper I ever knew. David (Dave) McKamey of Worland was always cooperative when I needed access to the Colby Mammoth site. Irene Morgan was a WAS member from Lander, Wyoming, who, at a moment’s notice, would provide help and support for archaeology site work. William (Bill) Perry of Worland was one of the



acknowledgments xxi

landowners of the Colby Mammoth site, who generously allowed me to continue with our excavations following a serious misunderstanding. Edwin (Ed) Peterson of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, acquired part of the Hell Gap site but unfailingly allowed us access for excavation. Grover and L ­ aurie Phalen of Casper were WAS members who helped me many times. Margaret Powars was a charter member of the WAS and an unwavering supporter of Wyoming archaeology. Nicolai Dmitrievich Praslof, Institute of the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, paved the way for me to study Russian zoological materials. Connie Robinson is an outstanding illustrator and wildlife artist. Jesse and Kathy Schultz lived close to the Agate Basin site and provided us with many amenities to help our site investigations. Jesse Schwiddie was a neuro­surgeon in Billings, Montana, who advised me in 1958 to get away from horses and other ranch work before I developed permanent back trouble. Robert Sheaman owned the Sheaman site and always cheerfully allowed access. Ann Slater was a professor in the Anthropology Department at UW and an expert in all aspects of language and writing. She helped me on many occasions to improve my writing efforts. Kenneth Sr., Kenneth Jr., and Georgia St. Clair of Worland are longtime family friends and strong supporters of my archaeology projects in that part of Wyoming. Louis Steege of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was a major figure in the development of the WAS. Lou Strangford owned and operated the Wagon Wheel Café in Ekalaka and helped us in numerous ways during the Mill Iron site investigations. Charles Swaim is an outstanding photographer, who was always striving for perfection. Glen Sweem of Sheridan was a longtime member and supporter of the WAS. David Taylor was caretaker at the Medicine Lodge Creek site at the time of the 2005 opening of old trenches, and he convinced the Wyoming State Parks to provide a special backhoe to expose the necessary profiles. Burton (Burt) Williams is another Montana BLM archaeologist who helped with obtaining approval for investigation of the Mill Iron site. Grant Wilson of Cheyenne was for many years the editor of the Wyo­ ming Archaeologist. Raymond (Ray) Wood, professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri, Columbia, is a longtime friend and colleague. William (Bill) Woodcock was an editor, first for Academic Press and later for Prince­ton University Press. His help and encouragement were important in my publishing efforts. My profound thanks go to all of you as well as those I have overlooked.

Introduction

The incentive to embark on a memoir project came about suddenly and unexpectedly. On June 30, 2011, I was in the family room waiting anxiously for word on my daughter Carol’s progress during open-heart surgery. Seeking something to divert my attention was unsuccessful; the only thing on TV was a soap opera, and nothing in the periodical rack attracted my interest. Thinking about Carol, I took the note pad by the telephone and began to write down incidents relating to our lifetime experiences. A day later, when she recovered enough to comprehend what I was doing, she urged me to continue and expand my efforts into a family history. Until this time, I had never entertained the idea of putting together something like a memoir. I was well aware of my limitations in expressing my thoughts in writing, and stringing words together in meaningful and easily understood terms was not my forte. Committing oneself to a memoir requires digging into the past and dredging up both the good and the bad and, in my case, reflecting on the differences between two very different lifestyles. Of innumerable events, some have become imprinted on my mind. While engaged in ranch life, I remember an old cow that found a hole in the fence one night and slipped away into the hills to deliver her calf. After a long day of unsuccessful riding to locate her and with the approach of a typical spring blizzard, I concluded that she probably encountered some sort of mishap and I would find her carcass later guided by a flock of eagles, ravens, and magpies. I remember my delight when three days later I saw her walking back with a healthy, frisky calf by her side. Another time, I rode out one cold spring morning and found two cows that had died after wandering away from their normal grazing area into a patch of poisonweed. We managed to save the 1

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introduction

calves with bottled milk, but we lost a valuable part of our breeding stock. And during those subfreezing mornings during calving and lambing time, household relationships were strained when it was necessary to spread a canvas on the living room floor in front of the fireplace in order to thaw out and save a newborn. Another low point occurred one spring when a pack of dogs found their way into a herd of sheep penned in a corral for the night. The dogs were not looking for something to eat but killed several and crippled several others. I could understand a female coyote killing a lamb to feed her pups but not the wanton killing by stray dogs. However, on the positive side, it was pure pleasure to watch the animals, wild and domestic, shed their winter coats in spring and watch the green grass restore body conditions. The academic world also had its ups and downs, but of a very different kind. The acceptance or rejection of an article submitted to a journal could affect salary increase, promotion, and tenure. Approval of a grant proposal brought immediate euphoria. However, and in a different situation, that letter from the grant review committee stated that “we liked your proposal but we could only fund a limited number and yours was just below the cutoff point but be sure to read our comments and submit it again next year.” This did little to restore confidence or improve your image in the eyes of the dean. Student evaluation of faculty created uncertainty. Too many unfavorable responses could result in a summons to the dean’s office for a serious talk. Another one that appeared too often was the letter from the administration stating that you have been selected to head a committee to reconsider such topics as evaluating undergraduate graduation requirements or a better method to evaluate faculty merit raises. This was followed immediately by the realization that it would now require more after-work time to prepare a paper for timely submission to a journal. On the other hand, I cannot come up with enough negativity to seriously override the positive and have to admit that, as totally different as they were, I enjoyed both the ranching and university life. By the early 1970s, I was becoming better adjusted to the position in the Anthropology Department at the University of Wyoming. In the fall of 1973, I got a phone call from Marie Wormington at the Denver Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of Nature and Science). Marie was the accepted and unchallenged authority on early man (Paleoindian) in North America at this time, and she informed me that the author James Michener was in the Denver, Colorado, area preparing to write his novel Centennial and, wishing to be accurate in his introduction, wanted to learn



introduction 3

more about Plains prehistory. I was beginning excavations at the Colby Mammoth Kill site, and she wanted to know if she could bring Michener to the site. Having spent time in the South Pacific in World War II, I was impressed with Michener’s book Tales of the South Pacific, but, most of all, I envied his ability to put words together and present a somewhat different picture of the war in the Pacific other than the one of strictly naval and air battles and island invasions. I never expected to meet Michener in person, but the three of us spent two days looking at the Colby Mammoth site, the Hanson Folsom site, the Horner Bison Kill site, and other sites in the area. When Michener learned of my ranching experience, we discussed this topic as well as Paleoindian sites, and I am certain that he alluded to two of my comments on ranching in his treatment of the subject in Centennial. We met again when I was in Washington, D.C., and he was writing his novel Chesapeake and once more when he was invited to a special event at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. He did acknowledge my help on Paleoindian cultures for his novel Centennial, and although well aware of the difference between writing a novel and writing a monograph on an archaeological site, I still admire and envy the ability he had to assemble words. A short time later, the Smithsonian Institution initiated the effort to gather materials for the new Handbook of North American Indians, and I was invited to submit a paper on hunters and gatherers of the Northwestern Plains. I submitted a paper, but the project languished for several years, until one day I was notified that, under new editorship, it was being revived and all contributors were invited to meet at the Smithsonian Institution and attempt to get the project back on track. The papers we had written many years earlier were returned, and on mine in big red letters that covered the full width of the cover page appeared the comment, “This guy seems to know something about archaeology but he sure as Hell needs to learn more about how to write.” I have to admit that it was somewhat of a jolt to my ego, but I was not drummed out of the meeting and was asked to remain on the project. To my relief, my next contribution was accepted (Frison 2001), with nothing more than common editorial comments. I saved the earlier paper with the comments in bright red letters and showed it many times to my students when they complained bitterly about comments I made on their class papers. There is little if any justification to pursue these kinds of ramblings further. All I need to say is that the following pages present, first, the milestones of what eventually led me from my first lifestyle and, second, some

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of the milestones encountered in the second one. I remember well attending the Plains Anthropological Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1958 and taking along several artifacts from a cave I had located. Most expressed interest, but it was immediately apparent that they recognized me for what I actually was: a collector hoping for approval from the professionals. On the way home from the conference I told my wife, June, that I did not want to attend another conference unless I could claim some kind of professional status. She had felt the same resentment I had, that the professionals were tolerant of but disdainful toward the collecting element at the fringes of professional archaeology, and she agreed wholeheartedly with me on the subject. Three years later, at the age of 37, I realized that if I delayed as little as one more year, I would probably lose my determination to embark on an academic career. It would be difficult to start at the bottom, but there was no other choice. Some of the following pages reveal a gradual but irresistible pull away from ranching and into archaeology. I thought at this time that I should have taken advantage of the G.I. Bill after WWII and avoided some basic courses in completing an undergraduate degree, but in retrospect, the five years it took to achieve a Ph.D. in anthropology passed quickly, and we have never regretted our decision. Whether this kind of entry into the academic world of anthropology is good or bad has to be determined by others, but up to this point, I am unaware of any professional referring to my collecting background to account for my shortcomings. Artifact collectors will always be with us, and they fall into different categories in regard to their relationships with professional archaeologists. Some bring their discoveries into my office only to have me refute their observations and conclusions and leave in a huff when I do not agree with them. Others will test me with fake artifacts and unlikely stories about their sources. On the other hand, I find that most collectors have a true interest in what they collect and share information in hopes that what they have found or otherwise acquired may lead to something significant. I have found that down through the years, straightforward relations with the collectors are the best solution and can sometimes lead to the recovery of worthwhile information.

‹1› The Background

During the summer of 1901, my paternal grandparents, Jacob and Margaret Frison (36 and 32 years of age, respectively), with their family of three boys (aged 10, eight, and five years) and a five-year-old girl along with a 19-year-old nephew, packed up their belongings in wagons, gathered up their livestock, and started out on the trek from Basalt, Colorado, to the small hamlet of Ten Sleep, in the Bighorn Basin in northern Wyoming, a distance of about 450 miles. Jake Frison had been an engineer for the Colorado Midland railroad but wanted to move to a place with better ranching potential. He had visited the area the year before and was favorably impressed with the open range conditions, the farmland along Ten Sleep Creek, and the nearby Bighorn Mountains. The trip took most of the summer; there were no improved roads, and the wagons, with wooden, iron-rimmed wheels, were anything but comfortable. Upon arrival at their destination, winter was fast approaching, so they negotiated to take over a half-section of land (320 acres) that a homesteader relinquished after he decided to move on. One small building was on the property, so they quickly cut pine logs and added two more rooms. They faced a long, cold winter with only two wood stoves for heat. However, as soon as the frost left the ground in the spring, they began clearing land of sagebrush and building an irrigation ditch to raise enough hay and grain to feed their animals during the coming winter. They began to build up their cow herd and launched into a moderate ranching operation. Several members of my grandmother’s family remained behind in Colorado and could never rationalize the move to a lawless frontier area such as Wyoming. However, my grandparents were determined to find a location with plenty of room for expansion into a ranching operation, and 5

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although they would face the hardships of an unforgiving frontier territory, it was an exciting time, and they looked forward with great hopes and expectations to the future. Their ranching operation progressed well over the next decade, but unfortunate incidents continually surfaced. Another son was born in 1902, but poor health took him a few years later. Another son came along in 1906, but their only daughter, Annella, died in 1916 from an incurable heart condition. In 1924, another son, George S. Frison, my father, was accidentally killed just three months before I was born. My grandparents offered my mother and me a home, but she was unhappy with the isolation of ranch life, and we moved to a small town about 30 miles away. Two years later she remarried, and my grandparents convinced her to let me live with them on the ranch. The day I was welcomed by my grandparents at the age of just over three years is the earliest childhood experience I am able to recall. As I stepped out of that old Model A Ford that day to greet my grandparents at my new home, I noticed three horses standing nearby. Being totally unfamiliar with horses, I reached out to touch one, which shied away, pushing another horse that in turn pushed me into a barbwire fence, cutting a deep gash above one eye. Fortunately, the local doctor happened to be nearby, and after copious blood and tears, several stitches in my forehead, and a piece of pie from my grandmother, my grandfather took me by the hand and formally introduced me to an old buckskin-colored horse named Buck, the one that crowded me into the fence. He explained to me that Buck did not purposely try to hurt me and that I needed to get better acquainted with him because I would be spending a lot of time riding him in the future. He then saddled Buck, lifted me up into the saddle, and led him around the corral. From that moment, Buck and I were almost inseparable. For a short while, my grandfather would lead Buck for hours with me, sometimes even asleep, in the saddle, but I will never forget the day he handed me the bridle reins and said that I was on my own. While trailing cattle with my grandfather one day in the summer of 1929, I noticed a strange object lying on the ground alongside the trail. I dismounted, put it in my pocket, and upon returning home, showed it to my grandmother. With a surprised look, she informed me that it was a stone spearpoint and the largest and best one that she had ever seen. This started my interest in Indian artifacts, which would continue to grow and occupy a good share of my time spent in the hills while riding for cattle. My grandfather was tolerant of my watching the ground for artifacts but



The Background 7

would become irritated when this allowed the cattle to stray off the trail and disrupted the day’s work schedule. A cow dog was an important part of the process of working with cattle. A good cow dog was trained to heel and respond to voice commands and was expected to be alert for animals straying off the trail. Almost as important a companion as my horse was our dog, Rex, a well-trained animal of uncertain ancestry that was a terror to cattle but gentle around humans. He would nip the heel of a cow, and when she turned around to challenge him, he would bite her nose, and from that point on, Rex had the cow under his control. He also had a bit of the killer instinct. A band of sheep (about 2,000) were being trailed through the area one day, and the herder was not paying close attention; about 100 head slipped away from the main herd and crawled through a fence and into our hay field. I sicced Rex on the sheep with immediate results; they were back in the herd where they belonged, but Rex had killed one in the process. Fortunately, there were no serious consequences, because the sheepherder was at fault. However, I was cautioned to be more careful in the future. Dogs were well cared for but were not allowed in the house. As was the case with many dogs trained for use around livestock, Rex included, they could never refrain from attacking a skunk or porcupine. The only treatment for a dog with a face full of quills was to wrap the animal up in a canvas or quilt and have one person hold it down while, painful as it was, the other person pulled out the quills with a pair of pliers. Someone finally discovered that snipping off the end of the quill relieved the air pressure that expanded the quill and made it easier and less painful to extract. Rattlesnake bites on dogs were common also. In this case nothing much could be done; the animal would lie around for a few days and eat grass until it either recovered or died. The outcome of an encounter of a dog with a badger was almost always in favor of the latter. No ordinary dog could overcome the claws, teeth, and ferocity of a badger. Although I spent a good share of my early years around horses and cattle, I was never encouraged to break horses or become a calf roper. I was continually reminded that the calves were supposed to gain weight and not have it lost by practicing with a rope. I wanted a pair of real cowboy boots and was envious of the other boys who were able to wear them, but my grandparents said that they were too expensive and I did not need them. The cowboy image has undergone many changes since those drought and depression days of the 1930s. After World War II about every small town

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in the area staged an annual rodeo, and pickup trucks and horse trailers provided the mobility needed for Sunday afternoon roping contests. The outside world unfolded in other well-remembered ways during the next few years. Riding up an arroyo one day, my grandfather suddenly yelled at me and pointed to a large prairie rattler that was swallowing a young cottontail rabbit. In those days, part of the code of the west was to always kill that rattlesnake, which he did with his quirt. Few things demand one’s attention as quickly as the unmistakable buzz of a rattlesnake, and I soon learned that if you spent time outside, you would regularly hear that sound. We were taught to always be alert and become familiar with and try to avoid the locations where snakes were likely to be found. We were continually reminded that they would seek shade from the hot summer sun and become active at dusk, when they would be seeking their prey. Ordinarily, they were not aggressive except during skin-shedding periods. They began moving to their cold-weather dens during late summer. These were locations that provided access to underground cavities. I saw one of these locations on a warm October day, where hundreds darted into holes as we passed by. Following this experience, I had bad dreams about snakes for several nights. While riding up a canyon on another day, my grandfather pointed out two badly decomposed, large mule deer that died after their antlers became locked together while fighting. We cached the locked antlers in a patch of brush, intending to retrieve them at a later date, but someone else apparently came up with the same idea. On still another occasion, my grand­ father pointed to what from a distance resembled a snowdrift and at close range proved to be a large pile of badly decomposed elk antlers. It has long since disappeared completely, but in retrospect, I now believe that it was probably one of similar elk antler piles recorded by early western travelers and credited to historic Indian tribes (see Conner 1972). It was in a location where large numbers of male elk still congregate in winter, and present-day antler gatherers monitor the animals closely from long distances with spotting scopes as they await the time in early spring when the antlers are shed. They bring a high price from Chinese dealers who sell them for use as an aphrodisiac and from craft specialists who carve them into different kinds of art objects. Golden eagles always attracted my attention. Riding across a sagebrush-­ covered flat one day, my horse nearly stepped on a sage grouse on her nest. As she flew away, an eagle slammed into her and before she hit the ground,



The Background 9

picked her out of the air and flew away. The noise and flying displays of a pair of golden eagles that nested in a steep bluff nearby always attracted attention. As I watched one day, one with an object in its claws flew high in the air and dropped the object, and the other bird, flying far below, plucked it out of the air, flew high, and dropped it while the other retrieved it. They repeated this at least three times, finally letting the object fall to the ground. It fell in an open field about a quarter of a mile away, so I jumped on my horse to investigate. It was the head of a freshly killed jackrabbit. On another occasion in late winter I watched two eagles kill a yearling deer. It was an animal in poor condition after a hard winter; one lit on the animal’s back while it was running, ripped its flank open, and began ripping out the flesh while it was still alive. Other eagles soon appeared, along with the ever-­present ravens and magpies, and little remained a short time later other than the bones, the head, a few pieces of hide, and the feet. Other interesting events regularly came to pass. On a warm September day while driving a cow and calf out of a deep canyon, we stopped to eat lunch and then climbed up a steep slope to an overhanging sandstone rock wall covered with several dark, outline figures of animals and other designs. My grandfather told me that this was “Indian writing,” a concept I accepted and believed for many years afterward. About a year later we went to another cave where, along with a number of both black and red painted figures, on one wall was a black-and-white grizzly bear, a black bison, and a human figure with V-shaped shoulders and a long slim neck (Figure 1.1). After we drove the cow and calf out of the canyon, we rode along the canyon rim until we stopped again and walked to the edge of a crevice several feet deep, where my grandfather pointed to bones lying at the bottom. He said that he had investigated this location several years before and that the bones were those of a horse associated with a Native American burial wrapped in a blanket, which rapidly decomposed upon contact with the air, exposing the human bones. Apparently the man’s horse was killed after he was interred and was pushed over into the crevice with him. Another interesting and scary thing was that openings into the canyon wall at the bottom of the crevice were entrances to a rattlesnake den. My grandfather pointed to two large snakes that had already arrived at their winter quarters and were enjoying the heat from the last warm days of late summer. Walking back to our horses, I picked up an arrowhead, and on the ride home I inquired into the manufacture of these stone weapons and tools. My grandfather said that he did not know for sure but had been told it was

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Figure 1.1. Grizzly bear, bison, and human figure painted on a cave wall.

done with heat and water. This was another bit of folklore I accepted as fact until several years later an itinerant worker came through and was hired for the haying season. I showed him my artifact collection and told him the story I was told earlier about their manufacture. He gave me a strange look, reached into his duffel bag, took out a piece of thick glass and an antler tine, and in a matter of minutes, pressure-flaked an authentic-appearing projectile point. Needless to say, it was a revealing moment and a situation in which I began to realize I could not believe everything I was told. Unfortunate things also happened. Too often, curiosity proved fatal to young colts. On separate occasions, one got its nose too close to a porcupine, which resulted in a face full of quills, and another colt’s curiosity apparently caused it to get its nose too close to a rattlesnake. They were far from home on the open range at the time, and both were unable to suckle their mothers and eventually died. I shed many tears the day my grand­ father’s favorite horse lay down in the pasture for the last time and had to be shot. It was worse when Buck, my inseparable companion, met the same fate. The cow dog Rex was getting old and no longer able to flush the cows out of the brush. He lay down in his bed one night, and we buried him the following day.



The Background 11

Another unpleasant time was the drought years of the early 1930s. Winter snows were light, spring rains failed to materialize, many springs ceased to flow, and the ones that did flow required digging small ponds at their source to conserve water for the animals. I quickly sensed my grandparents’ concern over the lack of grass and water on the range and their relief when spring rains returned two years later and the grass was once more tall enough to wave in the breeze along the ridgetops. However, others were less fortunate, and the government killed many cattle that were near starvation (see Petrie 1934/1935). Young as I was, I remember a neighbor’s despair when several of his animals were shot, dragged into a trench, and covered with dirt. The lesson learned was that Mother Nature could be very fickle and no longer could ample grass and water be taken for granted. Apprehension prevailed every following spring until the rains came, the grass sprouted, and the hillsides turned green. The plains and mountains where the ranch was located were rich in wild game, and nearly everyone looked forward to the hunting season. At the age of eight I was given a .22-caliber single-shot rifle to hunt rabbits, prairie dogs, and predators such as weasels, skunks, and raptors. Cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus nuttallii) were plentiful but rarely used for human food. Rabbits often went down their hole when shot, but my grandfather showed me how to select a willow or chokecherry shaft with a fork in the end to retrieve them. The shaft was extended into the hole until it contacted the animal and was given several turns. The forked end nearly always twisted itself into the rabbit’s hair and allowed it to be dragged out of the hole. Another equally effective method was to carry along a small coil of barbed wire. About this time tularemia, a disease that can be transmitted to ­humans, appeared in rabbit populations, and they were no longer hunted. I was cautioned to avoid rabbits, especially if they appeared to be sick. I was carefully instructed in the care and use of the rifle and warned that any careless behavior on my part would result in loss of its use. The next year, at the age of nine, under the watchful eye of my grandfather, I used his .30-30-caliber Winchester rifle to kill my first deer, at that time an event regarded as an important rite of passage for nearly all boys living on farms and ranches. At age 13, I killed my first elk, another important milestone and a significant addition to the winter food supply. The legal age to purchase a license to hunt large game was 14, but game wardens were spread thin, and as long as an adult was present, they rarely questioned who killed which animal as long as it was during the legal hunting season. In

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addition to hunting deer and elk, most boys also trapped coyotes, bobcats, muskrats, and other furbearers as a source of spending money. I remember my anticipation of the hide buyer’s visits, which came around about every two months in the winter, and my hope that he would offer a good price for my furs. The idea of the consolidation of small country schools was just beginning as I became of school age. My first years were in an older building with inadequate heating and outside facilities. I remember an old school bus with no heat except for the exhaust that went into a large iron pipe the length of the seating area. It was not dependable and often would not operate at all in below-zero weather. The students living in the country did not make it to school on those days unless someone could get a vehicle started. When the snow melted and the frost came out of the ground, the bus would often be stuck in mud, and many students on ranches would saddle their horses and ride to school. There were several places to leave the horses until school was adjourned for the day. I had few problems in school; the three R’s came easily, and I soon learned that a good report card brought about good relations at home. Memorization was an integral part of schooling at that time, and I vividly remember being the only one in the class who was able to recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from start to finish. However, it was not an accomplishment that met with approval or admiration from the other students. Infractions of the rules resulted in a trip to the principal’s office, and a second infraction usually resulted in a paddle to the rear end that was more of a blow to one’s dignity rather than causing pain. Complaints at home about punishment at school were of no avail and could lead to even more serious consequences. The best way was to either stay out of trouble or not bring your complaints home if you didn’t. Ranch life demanded attention to a list of assigned chores. Best remembered and least enjoyed was the cow or two that had to be milked night and morning. There was no way to avoid learning and accepting this task and doing it properly. The milk, while still warm, had to be put through the separator, a mechanical monster that separated the cream and had to be turned at exactly the right speed for what seemed an interminable period of time. Wood boxes were expected to be filled with wood of the proper size, and when the primitive water system failed, water for household use had to be carried in buckets from the nearby stream. Neglect of chores had to be supported with plausible excuses, but even with its drawbacks, I knew that ranch life was more appealing to me than living in town.



The Background 13

Refrigeration was still many years in the future, and the luxury of being able to reach into a freezer at any time for ice cubes was something yet to be conceived. The substitute at that time was the icehouse. An artificial pond was filled with water, and in late winter when the ice was solid and about 2 feet thick, several families would get together and cut the ice into blocks with a special saw that resembled a crosscut saw for cutting wood. The blocks were hauled to the icehouses, packed close together, and enclosed completely with a foot or more of sawdust. The ice would last for most of the spring and summer and, if carefully conserved, would provide cooling for a small ice chest and cool drinking water on hot summer days that, at that time, seemed a true luxury. One of my assigned chores was to shovel off the sawdust, expose some ice, and use a hatchet to loosen a chunk. The exposed area had to be immediately covered with sawdust to prevent melting.

The Native Americans Early historic accounts claim that the Ten Sleep Valley where our ranch was located was a favorite stopover point for historic Indian tribes traveling between the Yellowstone River in Montana and the North Platte River in central Wyoming. According to these accounts, it was a 10-day trip or “ten sleeps” from here to either of the two rivers; hence the name Ten Sleep. A less glamorous account was told by Joe Medicine Crow, an old Crow Indian historian, who claimed that a late fall blizzard forced his great-grandfather’s family group to camp at the mouth of Ten Sleep Canyon for 10 days until weather conditions improved (Conner 1992). Not surprisingly, most preferred the former interpretation. To support their claim, they referred to a painted figure on a sandstone rockshelter wall that consisted of a conical tipi with two handprints alongside. The authenticity of the painted figure was often questioned, and it is no longer present due to road construction, but it remains to this day a topic for discussion among the locals and tourists traveling through the area. However, there was a historic, well-marked Indian trail through part of the ranch’s territory. It came from the north, wound through the foothills, crossed Ten Sleep Creek Canyon, and finally reached the higher elevations. It then crossed the Bighorn Mountain divide and headed south toward the North Platte River. Although the trail had been searched for artifacts for over two decades by the time I became aware of it, I was still able to find parts of lodge and travois poles, an occasional worn-out and discarded quirt with an elk antler handle, a metal arrowpoint, glass beads, and odd pieces

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Figure 1.2. Native American burial platform in a ponderosa pine tree.

of metal. Several Native American burials had been placed in rock crevices and trees and on high spots and covered with rocks, but, like the trail, most had been searched for artifacts many years earlier. One exception was at the age of six, when I clearly remember a skeleton wrapped in a bison hide that fell from the forks of a large juniper tree when it was cut down for winter wood. There were no artifacts associated with the burial. About two years later I rode through the same area and noticed bones lying at the base of a large ponderosa pine nearby; looking up, I spotted a platform made of tree limbs about 3 meters off the ground (Figure 1.2). It had undoubtedly been a tree burial, with only a few blanket shreds remaining, although no skeletal parts remained on the platform. The bones at the base of the tree proved to be from a small horse, probably the owner’s, killed at the time of the burial. Glass beads were also scattered on the ground around the base of the tree. The platform remained in place for several years. Well known by all in the area at that time was a crevice in a canyon wall several miles from the ranch that had contained a number of human skeletons of people who allegedly died of smallpox. I wanted to ride my horse to the site, but my request was refused through fear that the smallpox might still present a danger. Two years later I went to see the location, but the landowner had used dynamite to blast off part of the ledge above the



The Background 15

crevice to partly fill it and prevent curious persons from crossing his hay meadow and going into the crevice looking for glass beads. On a flat area just above the crevice is a small, flat-topped, sandstone butte with steep, sloping sides and steps carved into one side. According to an old Indian who occasionally traveled through the area, the butte had great religious significance. Still another single burial nearby yielded more than a hundred elk teeth, some still attached to a piece of tanned hide, probably a piece of clothing. Together, these places and events fueled a growing interest in the earlier inhabitants and provided a strong incentive to continue the search for more artifacts. I was between five and six years old in the winter of 1930–1931 when my grandmother gave me a book that was an account of Nick Wilson, a young boy who, in 1856, lived in the Great Salt Lake area in Utah (Wilson and Driggs 1919). I was particularly interested in his accounts of playing with Indian boys his own age and hunting rabbits and other small animals with their bows and arrows. Through a somewhat unlikely set of circumstances Wilson subsequently spent two years living with the Wind River Shoshoni, who, at that time, owned horses but had not yet acquired more than a few firearms. I read and reread the account of Wilson’s experiences with an old Shoshoni who was allegedly an official arrow maker for the tribe. By that time, they had metal arrows and rarely used those of chipped stone. Inspired by Wilson’s account, I asked my grandfather for help to make a bow and arrow. Wilson mentioned sinew-backed bows, but at that time we were unable to comprehend what was involved. However, Wilson mentioned that white cedar (probably juniper) was the wood commonly used. This was probably true because an occasional juniper tree can still be found with long strips of wood removed. My grandfather whittled out a bow from a straight length of juniper sapwood without knots and cut several straight shafts from a willow patch. He glued strips of turkey feathers on the shafts but said that I would probably get into trouble if he added metal or stone points. I used these items for some time until the bow split. I made other bows and arrows but was never able to claim more than limited expertise. A fortunate turn of events occurred in the 1930s that allowed me to learn more about bow manufacture and use. A bow-hunter and blacksmith, Robert Cole, moved into the area in the late 1930s. He was a big man and practiced with his bow about every day. It was reported that he used a bow with a pull of over 100 pounds. After experimenting with many kinds of wood, he settled on yew wood (Taxus sp.) as superior to wood from any tree

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native to Wyoming. He manufactured his own triple-bladed steel arrows mounted on heavy wooden shafts he turned out on a wood lathe. In 1939 at the annual Labor Day Rodeo in Thermopolis, Wyoming, he stood on one side of the rodeo arena and drove an arrow all the way through a mature male bison standing on the opposite side (Thermopolis, Wyoming, Daily Rec­ ord, September 7, 1939). There was a downside to this: They butchered the animal and prepared a barbecue for everyone attending the rodeo event; however, the animal was an old bull, so tough and tasteless that bison meat acquired a bad reputation that lasted for many years. Mr. Cole’s ability with a bow and arrow became legendary. I remember him at a prairie dog town one day literally nailing one after another to the ground. A man whose name I cannot remember told me that he was on an elk-­hunting trip with Mr. Cole when Cole killed a large bull elk at a distance of 175 steps. I asked Mr. Cole one day what I needed to do to hunt game larger than rabbits and prairie dogs; after a look at my equipment he said acquire a better bow, take more care in manufacturing and assembling arrow­points and shafts, and, above all, practice every day. I was unable, or more likely unwilling, to make the necessary commitment and stayed with firearms. Our summer range was in the higher elevations of the Bighorn Mountains, and occasionally groups of Crow Indians would travel off the reservation, which was just to the north in Montana. I recollect clearly one of these occasions: The Indians were hungry, and my grandfather offered them a cow that had recently broken a leg; they immediately killed, butchered, and consumed part of it and hung the remainder on nearby tree limbs to dry. They also had a small pony that was lame and could only travel with difficulty. My grandfather offered them his pocketknife, his chewing tobacco, and a few coins he had in his pocket for the horse, which they were willing to accept. The horse’s condition finally improved, and I was eventually able to tame it down enough to put on a saddle and ride it. Being an Indian-trained animal and, unknown to me, one mounted from the right side rather than the left, upon my first attempt to ride it, I was quickly bucked off. I finally rode the horse for several months but failed to brand it, and being in unfenced, wide-open rangeland, it apparently fell in with other horses and disappeared. Several years later after WWII several Crow families would camp for a night along Ten Sleep Creek where it ran through a corner of our ranch. In addition, several young Crow Indian men became good calf ropers and



The Background 17

Figure 1.3. William Shakespeare and Carol Frison wearing his eagle feather headdress.

started entering in the annual Ten Sleep Fourth of July rodeo. Two Crow ropers became good enough to occasionally win the prize money, a situation that unfortunately did not sit well with some of the local calf ropers, and to avoid a confrontation, the Crow ropers stopped attending. However, they still camped in the same spot when traveling through the country. The Wind River Indian Reservation lies in central Wyoming and is the home of the Wind River Shoshoni and Northern Arapahoe. Each group speaks a different language; they are traditional enemies, still not friendly toward each other; and each resides in their own separate part of the reservation. I became acquainted with a well-educated Arapahoe named William Shakespeare who was regarded as a specialist in the Arapahoe language, which is reputed to be extremely difficult to learn. We continued our acquaintance after WWII, and during one of our visits, my daughter became infatuated with his eagle feather headdress, so he offered it to her to wear for a photograph (Figure 1.3), an incident she has never forgotten. His name of Shakespeare is explained by the fact that in 1890, the commissioner of Indian affairs arbitrarily changed many Indian names. Consequently the names William Shakespeare, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and others appeared among the Northern Arapahoe on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

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Railroad Ties and Tie Hacks The Bighorn National Forest is adjacent to the ranch, and the trees in a large patch of lodgepole pine in one part of the forest were of the right size for railroad ties. Several Swedish men (tie hacks) moved in to harvest the timber patch in the 1930s. They were accomplished in the use of crosscut saws and broadaxes. I was allowed to accompany one of my uncles to the timber camp on two different occasions and was deeply impressed with a tie hack’s ability to fell a tree, cut it into proper lengths, and face two opposite sides with a broadax. He then had to hand-carry the tie to a location where a team of horses dragged them to a loading dock. Equally impressive was the massive amount of food these Swede tie hacks consumed. They were fed a big breakfast of eggs, meat, and potatoes and then came in for doughnuts and coffee in midmorning. They had a big lunch and then took an afternoon break for coffee and cake, which was followed by a large evening meal after work. I related this to my grandmother hoping that she might consider the morning and afternoon coffee breaks with the doughnuts and coffee, but my suggestion fell on deaf ears. The female cook in the tie hack camp was not one to underestimate. One of the drivers of the log-skidding teams came in one day, loudly complained about the food, and ended up with a frying pan full of hot potatoes on top of his head. The timber patch was soon exhausted of trees of the proper size for railroad ties, the timber camp was closed, and most of the Swedes moved on to other areas. However, three stayed for several years. They were excellent craftsmen and built several log cabins for people in the area. I watched them build a cabin with hand-hewed logs with dovetail corners, locking logs around the top tier, and internal roof supports that held the entire structure together without metal spikes or braces. Over four decades later, I managed to salvage one of these cabins, restore it to a close semblance of its original condition, and place it on a cement foundation. I still look at it and admire their work but, with regret, think about this bit of lost technology. A half century after the railroad ties were cut, I was hunting in the same area and came across one of the ties that, for some reason, had not been removed. It was badly decomposed but still salvageable and retained its original shape. I retrieved it and gave it to a friend, who treated it with a wood preservative and kept it as a conversation piece. It is a reminder of events mostly forgotten by the few remaining older inhabitants and never related to the present generations.



The Background 19

Dinosaur Bones and Gizzard Stones Dinosaur bones and what are claimed to be their gizzard stones are found in widespread exposures of Upper Cretaceous age in the badlands of the Bighorn Basin. In 1934, Carnegie Institution paleontologists excavated a large deposit of dinosaur bones about 40 miles north of our ranch. Although times were tough and money was scarce, my grandmother insisted that we visit the location, which required travel over poorly maintained dirt and gravel roads. The paleontologist in charge was Barnum Brown from the Carnegie Institution, who, a few years earlier, had identified the bison at the Folsom site in northern New Mexico as an extinct species. I would have to wait more than two decades before I was able to fully comprehend the significance of this event to North American archaeology. Dr. Brown was a gracious host and took time to look through my collection of artifacts and fossils. I remember him saying that he was interested in a special kind of stone artifact, and I am almost certain that he was thinking of a Folsom point like those found at the Folsom site where he identified the bison in northern New Mexico. What he did not and could not know at that time was that a site, the Hanson Folsom site, with the same species of bison and human artifacts as the New Mexico Folsom site was a short distance from the dinosaur location and was not to be discovered until nearly three decades later. At the time I was impressed by the size of the long sections of articulated vertebrae among the dinosaur remains and the way the excavators cast them in plaster and burlap, but as we left the site I realized that, even at the age of nine, Indian artifacts were more interesting to me than dinosaur bones.

The Last of the Carefree Years In the late spring of 1935, my grandfather and I were moving cattle to a higher pasture when he said that he would take them the last mile if I would like to stop at an old Indian campsite and look for artifacts. He said that he would return in about two hours, but after about three hours, his horse came back down the trail without him. Rather than try to find him by myself, I hurried home, and a search was immediately organized. We found him badly hurt and unable to move: he was lying in a narrow deep arroyo where his horse had stumbled and fallen on top of him. He was able to reach out, loosen a large root from a nearby juniper tree, and hit the horse’s head, causing it to regain its feet and start back down the

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trail, but my grandfather was unable to move and could only wait for help to arrive. The search party found him before dark. He was conscious but in severe pain and had to be carried some distance to a rough two-track road that could be traveled with a motor vehicle. It was several miles away from home, and there was no alternative but to endure the trip over the rocks and ruts in the road. The nearest doctor available was nearly 40 miles away over improved but unpaved roads. The next day the doctor determined that the head of his right femur was snapped off squarely; had it snapped at an angle, the bone would have had a better chance to knit sooner than it did. My grandfather was immobile in an oppressively hot hospital room for several weeks during the summer with the leg stretched out straight under tension and tightly wrapped with tape. An infection developed in his leg that failed to heal. He was never able to ride a horse again, and lacking his guiding hand, the ranch was unable to regain its former condition. He suffered far more than I ever realized for several years, until he had a stroke and passed away in January 1941. In retrospect, he was one of the early conservationists of the west. He loved the wildlife and always tried to leave enough grass for them to survive the winters. He was instrumental in bringing elk back into the area after the original herd was eliminated by about 1910. He hated the wolves, not because they were wild animals but because they traveled in packs, would appear without warning, and were especially deadly to his colts and calves. He and several other cattlemen established a bounty on wolves, and he hunted, trapped, and poisoned them and sought out their dens until they were finally eliminated by about 1920 (Figure 1.4). One of my uncles, Paul Frison, showed me two old wolf dens; one was a tunnel-like opening several meters long into the base of a canyon wall shared by two females. He, my father, and my grandfather took out nine pups there in 1906. The other den was that of a single female and her pups located in a hole at the base of a rock ledge in a shallow canyon that was later part of my father’s homestead. My grandfather would not have welcomed the recent reintroduction and recovery of wolves in Yellowstone National Park and their reoccupation of the Bighorn Mountains. The new wolf populations are a continual source of contention among wildlife conservationists, livestock operators, ecologists, hunters, and federal and state regulators and are again a threat to livestock and wild game.



The Background 21

Figure 1.4. Gray wolf in a steel trap, caught by the author’s father, George S. Frison, in 1914.

Buffalo or Bison There was abundant evidence that bison frequented our summer grazing land in earlier times. Through the years, my grandfather and uncles picked up large male bison skulls and continually added them to a pile that was as high as the top of the door of the summer cow camp. Chopping the frontal bones open to expose the brain cavities of many of these provided evidence that the animals were killed by earlier hunters. Horn sheaths were still intact on many others, and on one I noticed a metal projectile point penetrating the sheath and extending a short distance into the horn core. Another time I noticed a skull with a round, finger-sized hole in the frontal bone; further investigation revealed a lead ball lodged inside. I was told that two ponds for watering cattle were old buffalo wallows laboriously deepened and widened with a team of horses and a “Fresno scraper,” a hand-controlled dirt mover, to hold more water for livestock use. Many old bison trails were still visible in the form of deep ruts in the terrain. Numerous cracks and crevices are found in the sandstone walls and steep slopes of canyons on the western slopes of the Bighorn Mountains.

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One day I noticed an odd-appearing object in one of these deep crevices; it proved to be a large male bison that had apparently slipped and fallen into it. The hide was mostly intact and formed an armor-like covering over most of the carcass. It had a well-preserved skull with horn sheaths still intact, and I wanted to recover it, but even by placing a lariat rope around the horns, it was too tightly wedged to move. It was some time before I was able to return, and in the meantime, someone had managed to remove the skull, but I was never able to find out who recovered it.

The Disastrous Winter of 1886 and 1887 The winter of 1886–1887 was a legendary event on the North American Plains that killed many cattle and put many livestock operators out of business. There have been numerous written accounts of that winter both from a regional perspective (Smith 1966:35–48) and from the perspective of its effects on the livestock industry in the Bighorn Basin (P. Frison 1975:74–77). There have been other bad winters that the old cattlemen referred to as the “equalizer years,” when nearly everyone lost so many animals that they were all in the same condition financially and had to begin at the bottom and start over again. However, the winter of 1886–1887 is still remembered as probably the worst one of all, at least in human memory. It occurred 14 years before my grandparents came to the Bighorn Basin, but that winter was still fresh in many peoples’ minds. I was rarely in contact with kids my own age or grown-ups of my parents’ age except during school months, and because most of the rangelands were unfenced, my grandfather and I spent much of our time traveling the area and gathering animals that wandered away from their home territory. This provided an opportunity to meet many of the older ranchers in the area. I had the privilege of meeting and visiting with Mr. John Weintz, who lived in the Paintrock River valley at the time of that disastrous winter and not far from where my grandparents later settled. Nearly five decades later, one of my uncles and I happened to cross paths with Mr. Weintz, and it was inevitable that the subject of the winter of 1886–1887 would come up for discussion. He pointed to a location where he believed the last nine bison in that part of the Bighorn Basin had perished during that winter. Following his directions, we rode to the location, where there were a few scattered bones and part of a bison skull. I picked up a bison horn sheath that I still have.



The Background 23

Other Early Interests and Diversions In 1937, I had my first contact with a live bison. A small herd of bison was established and became a permanent fixture as an attraction at a state park in Thermopolis. In the late 1930s, 10 of the animals escaped the park boundary and eventually settled into a secluded location close to our ranch. One, a young cow, strayed from the rest and found its way to our summer range. I chased it on horseback one day, and, with no hesitation, it easily cleared a five-wire-high barbwire fence. On the next try, instead of clearing the fence, she executed a 90-degree change in direction in front of my horse, and we both ended up on the ground, fortunately unhurt except for several bruises. I was mightily impressed by the animal’s speed and agility and remembered the occasion many times later on in life as I became deeply involved with bison behavior as it pertained to historic and prehistoric bison kill sites. My interest in things archaeological continued to expand also. One day while riding along a ridge in the badland country west of the mountains searching for a cow that had left the herd to seek out a spot to deliver a calf, I noticed a burned spot about 3 feet in diameter containing fire-cracked rock. Farther down the same ridge, I counted several more similar features spaced several yards apart. Returning to the main herd, I asked one of the riders if he knew what the strange features were. Because I had failed to find the lost cow, he told me to keep looking for the animal and stop watching the ground for artifacts. Following this, I began to notice more of these features in the badland area associated with shaped sandstone slabs (metates) and smaller but thicker pieces of shaped sandstone (manos). I continued to speculate on these features and one day took a garden hoe, cut off most of the wooden handle, and rode to one of the features I had seen earlier. Removing the fire-cracked rocks at the surface revealed a reddish-colored circle that was the rim of a pit about 2 feet in diameter and a foot in depth, filled with more fire-cracked rock and charcoal in the bottom. The excavation would not in any way meet acceptable archaeological requirements, but it did satisfy my curiosity. It would be several decades before I learned that these tools and features represented an important but relatively unexciting part of Bighorn Basin prehistory. Pronghorns (Antilocapra americana) are at home in the badland country, and the males tend to paw exposed dirt patches with their front feet. One day I happened upon one of these spots with small white objects scattered about it that, on closer observation, proved to be bone fragments. Taking

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a closer look revealed a Native American burial, probably a female, with a clamshell pendant and a bone awl in the undisturbed part. Other human burials close to the surface occasionally appeared in the badland country, but this is the only one I remember being exposed by a male pronghorn pawing the ground. One burial I noticed later in the same area consisted of a crushed and badly weathered human skull, several vertebra, and a pelvis placed directly on top of a fire pit identical to the one I had dug into earlier with a hoe. In this later case, a shallow mound of dirt was piled over the bones, flat rocks were placed around the sides of the mound, and a large flat rock was placed over the top. I knew that it was probably a burial because bone fragments were visible around the edges and between the flat rocks, probably the result of wind and rodent activity. I remember being disappointed that no artifacts were present. My grandmother was tolerant of just about everything I brought home except human skeletal material, which had to be left at one of the outbuildings. Artifact hunting did reach a critical point one time when a broken point in my pants pocket escaped her sharp eyes and punched a hole in her new washing machine. Fortunately, it was quickly repaired with solder and a hot iron. I was careful afterward to remove all objects from my pockets and not jeopardize future trips to the hills looking for artifacts. My grandfather claimed that he came to the United States at the age of two and lived for a short time with distant relatives in Rome, New York. He was forced out on his own when quite young and began working in the timber industry. Most vivid in my memory is when he told me that ship masts required trees that were close to 100 feet (30 meters) tall and perfectly straight. He became an expert with both a broadax and a conventional double-bitted ax, and he insisted that I should follow in his footsteps. If he needed a piece of timber of a special size, he would use his broadax to reduce a log to whatever size piece he needed. He liked to set a stake in the ground and bet anyone that he could fell a tree close enough to drive the stake farther into the ground, and he seldom lost the bet. He would also challenge anyone to best him in chopping a log into blocks for firewood. He emphasized that the use of an ax or any tool requires the user to be able to design the tool and then be able to restore it to the proper condition when it becomes dull. I learned quickly that a splitting edge and a cutting edge on an ax had to be different. Green logs, frozen green logs, and dry logs required different working edge preparation. It was necessary also to be aware of the limitations inherent in a tool. To me, nothing is



The Background 25

more frustrating than attempting to do a job such as skinning an animal or cutting down a tree with a dull tool, and I am certain that this kind of early training followed through and influenced my tool use studies when analyzing tools recovered decades later in archaeological sites.

The Blackwater Creek Fire In late summer 1937, what was first believed to be an insignificant fire of unknown origin started on Blackwater Creek in the Shoshone National Forest between Cody, Wyoming, and Yellowstone National Park. A day later it had rapidly grown to nearly 2,000 acres (810 hectares), and calls went out for help. This was during the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic recovery efforts, and one of these, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), was designed to provide jobs for young men. A CCC camp was established in the Bighorn Mountains near our mountain grazing land, and the young men camped there were building a dam to form an artificial lake when word of the Blackwater Creek fire was received. The CCC crew was immediately transferred to help maintain fire lines at the Blackwater fire about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the west. Due to strong and erratic winds, the fire changed direction and trapped a large number of fire fighters. Lacking entirely at the time were the improvements in fire-fighting equipment and communication in regular use today. The tragic result was 12 dead and 21 severely burned and many more in less serious condition. All hospital facilities in northwest Wyoming were overwhelmed with fire victims, and many doctors and nurses from outside sources rushed to the area. Most of the victims were young men from Texas, but two of the dead and two of the severely burned were longtime family friends; the latter two were so severely burned that they never fully recovered from the ordeal. The results of the Blackwater Creek fire cast a dark shadow over the entire area for many years (see P. Frison 1975:287–300). At the time of the Blackwater fire, my grandfather was attempting to recover from his hospital ordeal resulting from the broken femur that occurred when his horse fell with him. He was trying to assure us that he was recovering, but it was easy to see that he was in constant pain. I had enjoyed many years of worry-free activity, but I could clearly see that change was inevitable. I could easily detect the intense strain it was placing on my grandmother, and I knew that the time had arrived when I had to pay more attention to my responsibilities and spend less time wandering the hills searching for artifacts and buffalo skulls.

‹2› The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II

Times were changing rapidly in the American west toward the end of the nineteenth century. The bison herds were gone; Indian tribes were being forced into reservation life; and the cattle barons, fur trappers, prospectors, and remittance men saw the homesteaders and smaller livestock operators begin to take over the open spaces. Cattlemen and sheepmen relationships were analogous to mixing oil and water, with situations that often erupted into violence. In 1909, an arbitrary line, known as the “dead line,” was drawn by several cattlemen in the eastern Bighorn Basin, and the sheepmen were warned of violent measures if they crossed that line. The warning went unheeded, which resulted in the Spring Creek Raid, one of the last real violent acts in that part of the west between the two factions. Three sheepmen were killed, their wagons and supplies were burned, and many sheep were slain. My grandfather had the good judgment to stay out of the actual conflict, but after a long and bitter court trial, the ones who were involved in the killings were sentenced to long prison terms (see Davis 2005). It was the last major violent event in the cattle and sheep altercations, and it was unfortunate that it occurred in the immediate area of my grandparents’ ranch operation. It was a turning point in relationships between many local families, and negative feelings lingered for many decades. My grandfather was a good man with cattle and took great pride in maintaining a high-quality herd, but unfortunately, the only one of his sons who followed closely in his footsteps in this regard was my father, who was killed just before I was born. After my grandfather broke his hip, which never healed properly, he was unable to oversee the operation, and it went into decline. He loved horses but could no longer ride and was forced to give into the change from horse power to tractor power for farm work. 26



The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 27

I am sure that he knew the change was inevitable, but he continued to try and convince himself and others that there would be a resurgence of horse power. When he finally realized that this would never happen, alongside his deteriorating health, he became depressed, gave up the management of the ranching operation, and turned it over to two of his sons, Paul and Theodore (Ted) Frison. This arrangement lasted only a few years and finally brought about the end of our cattle business. Following this a change was made from raising cattle to a very different venture, that of raising sheep. Several sheepmen from Scotland moved into the area, and my uncles entered into an agreement with two of these men whereby they would lease the rangeland and purchase all of the hay and grain raised on the irrigated property needed to carry the sheep through the lambing period and other times when they were not on the open range. There still remained a definite level of tension between cattlemen and sheepmen, and following our switch from cattle to sheep, I could sense a change in attitudes at school, where many of my classmates were on the cattlemen’s side. Fortunately, other than an occasional snide reference to sheep, this never erupted into open conflict. One of the Scotch sheepmen, William Gordon, was close to the same age as my father would have been, and we formed a close relationship. In Scotland, he had been trained as a butcher. He offered to help me field dress a deer I had killed when we were out in the hills one day during hunting season, and I was impressed with his speed and professional manner. Each winter we would butcher several hogs and an occasional beef, and I learned from him the proper way to dissect a carcass into the different cuts of meat and not end up with improperly cut meat and hamburger. However, I was never able to match his ability in sharpening a knife and butchering an ani­ mal. He was able to field dress any animal of any size under any conditions with a pocketknife and never bothered to carry a standard hunting knife in a leather sheath. Gordon was a bachelor and spent most of his time in a sheep wagon or a headquarters camp with definitely Spartan accommodations. This began in the days of horse-drawn wagons and equipment, and taking care of the sheep operation required a thorough knowledge of both work and s­ addle horses, often under difficult open-range conditions. Dogs were of vital importance in the sheep business but were of different breeds and trained differently than cow dogs. Most of the Scotch sheepmen brought their favorite breeds of dogs from Scotland. Sheep demanded constant attention from a herder to ward off predators and control their movements from feed

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grounds in the morning to their bed grounds at night. Handling sheep bore little resemblance to handling cattle and was very different from the cattle operation I was raised with. Instead of roping a calf, wrestling it to the ground, and branding it with a hot iron, lambs were held by one person, had their tails docked, and were branded with paint. Cow corrals required an enclosure constructed with large posts and poles, while sheep corrals were portable and made of wooden panels. Cow dogs were of no use around sheep and vice versa, and the smaller size of the sheep made them more vulnerable to predators. Wool was an important part of the economic returns from the sheep business. There were two general kinds of wool fibers, one fine and the other coarse, depending on the breed of sheep. The former was the most desirable and commanded a better price than the latter, although certain qualities of the coarse-wool sheep breeds made them easier to handle under open-range conditions, so a choice between the two had to be made. Sheep were sheared once a year in the spring by itinerant groups that moved from one ranch to another. First were the blade or hand shearers, and these were replaced in later years by mechanical handheld shears that were operated from a shaft powered by an electric motor. Individual fleeces were tied with special strings and tossed into a special sack at the top of a platform, where a “tromper” (or stomper) would use his weight to force as many fleeces as possible into a long, tubular-shaped burlap sack, which, when full, would weigh between 300 and 400 pounds. A good hand shearer could handle as many as 60–70 in a day, while an exceptional shearer could add another 10 or 15, and there were a very few (known as high rollers) who reached the 100 mark. Payment was so much for each animal sheared and was twice as much for a buck (male) as for a ewe (female). Sheep were usually sheared before lambing because it made them easier to handle and more could be accommodated in the small pens used during lambing time. It also made it easier for newborn lambs to suckle their mothers. Rather than a lambing season in April and May, the Scotch sheepmen introduced a lambing period that began in early March to take advantage of a higher price for lambs ready for slaughter in late August to early September. Lambing in March required covered sheds and careful monitoring to protect the newborns from bad weather. Each ewe and lamb pair was fed separately for a day or so until the lambs were strong enough to be moved in with another pair, and this continued until they formed bunches of a hundred or more. In May and early June they would be in groups of



The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 29

several hundred and ready to spend the next two or three months on the open range under the watchful eye of a sheepherder who had living quarters that consisted of a canvas-covered wagon on wheels that contained a bed, table, stove, and storage space. The wagons were moved continually to take advantage of available feed and water. There would be two or more of these herds, and a camp tender would move wagons as needed, keep the herders supplied with food and firewood, shoe horses, and take care of other necessities. It was a good life, although a lonely one, in the warm months, but winters can only be described as miserable. Among the more unpleasant experiences I can recall was waking up in a sheep wagon in below-zero weather and attempting to warm it up and prepare a meal on a small wood stove. Sheepherders were a special group of people. They were intensely loyal to the owners and would under no circumstances abandon a herd, and there was no time off except in unusual conditions. Sheepherding was a kind of sanctuary for many individuals who, for various reasons, wanted to withdraw from society. They came from all over the world and from many different backgrounds. Some were highly educated, while others had no edu­cation at all. The one thing they seemed to share was a desire for solitude and to abandon the problems of society. Operation of the sheep business required a close association with these individuals that eventually drifted into the lonely life of the sheepherders. The life stories of several more could easily be added to those mentioned below. William (Bill) Hood spent 27 years in the British Navy, beginning at age 12 as a cabin boy. Although lacking a formal education, he kept track of world events, especially in WWII. He joined the Book-of-the-Month Club and always looked forward to his copy of the Manchester Guardian; he spent most of his salary on radios and radio batteries to follow world events. He always insisted on having his wagon parked on high places to get better radio reception. When visiting him in his wagon, his former seafaring ways would surface, and you would be invited to “come in and ’ave a bloody eyeball,” which consisted of two raw eggs in a water glass covered with two fingers of rum. We regarded him as a part of our family, and when his sheepherding days were over, we pulled his wagon off to a corner of the ranch, where he lived for several more years. He had no known relatives, so we provided him with a burial plot and a suitable grave marker. “Joe” claimed Chihuahua, Old Mexico, as his birthplace and never gave us any other name. He would not use a horse and followed the sheep all

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day on foot. Most days he would kill a cottontail rabbit or a sage grouse with a rock or stick and cook it in his wagon the same evening. His other favorite food was dried apples, which came in 50-pound sacks. One time dried apples were not available, and we substituted dried peaches. On our next visit we asked him how he liked the peaches, and his reply was that they made better applesauce than prunes. He would spend 50 weeks of each year with the sheep and the remaining two weeks in the nearest town at the local bars. The last time I picked him up to head back to camp he looked back into the local bar, reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a handful of silver dollars, the last of his year’s wages, threw them through the barroom door, and laughed as he watched the others in the bar scramble for them. He died later that year. Frank Hoffman came by one spring and asked for a job during the lambing season. He claimed to have herded sheep for several years in northern Wyoming and southern Montana and wanted to apply for a job as herder after the lambing season. He was best described as a true loner; he never volunteered much information and was always vague when questioned about his earlier life. He walked with a decided limp, but it did not impair his ability to walk long distances. He always collected his wages and sent them to a sister in some distant location. While herding sheep, he always carried a .45-caliber Colt handgun, the Peacemaker. I noticed one day that the end of the barrel that rested on the side of the heavy leather scabbard was well worn and polished, indicating that he had carried it this way for a long time. Later in the summer I cautiously asked him if a deep notch filed in the iron handle at the top of the handgrip signified the usual interpretation of someone no longer living. He hesitated for some time but finally gave me an affirmative answer. Pursuing the subject further, I asked about the nature of the incident. He sat down on the tongue of the sheep wagon, pulled up his pant leg, and pointed to a badly deformed area around the calf of the leg. He said that the other man’s shot broke his right tibia; he claimed that he sought no medical help and wrapped it up tightly until it healed, and this explained his limp. He did not offer any details about his adversary, but, following this, we were able to have longer conversations. One day he produced a hide bag, emptied it on the table, and claimed that the items inside were things he had collected many years earlier on the Custer Battlefield (now the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument) in southern Montana. Included were brass buckles, soldiers’ buttons,



The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 31

a piece of fabric that may have been from a flag, a small leather bag that contained two scalp locks, a metal knife, and several empty cartridges. He said that he had recently traded a handgun from his collection to a bartender in Billings, Montana, for enough money to travel to Wyoming just before he took the job at our lambing camp. He died several years later while I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan. He left his Colt .45 with one of my uncles with instructions to give it to me. I did not know what to do with it but finally gave it to a local museum. How much of it was true I will never know, but this was his story. “Happy” McDonald was a reliable herder, but his personal habits kept most visitors at a distance. He owned his own wagon, which was black from smoke inside, and he would only clean it out once a year. It was kind of a menagerie, with two or more dogs and other uninvited animals such as chipmunks, mice, and an occasional pack rat. He spent part of his wages on clothes that he never washed but simply threw away when they wore out or were too dirty to wear. He would buy a new vehicle every other year and pull his own wagon. He owned and, except for shoeing that was done by the camp tender, took care of his own horses. He was in the U.S. Army in WWII, and we always wondered how he could have survived in close contact with other soldiers without being regularly tossed into the showers and scrubbed down with a stiff-bristled brush. He herded for others after I left the ranch and died while I was in graduate school. “Scotty” was a reliable herder but had a tendency to occasionally slip over into strange behavior patterns. He had one habit that limited visitors to his wagon: He retrieved a skull from a Native American burial he found one day wrapped up in a buffalo hide and kept it in a sheepskin-lined drawer in his wagon; he would set a place for the skull across the table from him at mealtime and carry on a definitely one-sided conversation. One day he simply disappeared and was not seen or heard of afterward in our part of the country. Basque sheepherders started working their way into the sheep industry shortly after 1900. A loosely formed Basque community eventually formed in the southwestern Powder River Basin and the southern Bighorn Mountains, along with another in southwest Wyoming. The Basques still maintain strong cultural ties to their Pyrenees homeland in France and Spain. Two Basques, Domingo La Raurey and his wife, Maria, were hired to take charge of the first early-spring lambing season in March 1936, and then they both herded part of the main flock on the summer and fall range until

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they moved to the winter range in December. Domingo understood sheep better than anyone I ever knew, but his health failed, and he died soon after. More than once, I remember him working with ewes and newborn lambs in the long shed full of sheep when he would hear a certain tone of bleat from some distance away. He would say, “That old girl is in trouble and needs help.” He would rush to the source and take care of the problem.

Sheep and Predators Predators were a major problem for the sheepmen, and coyotes headed the list. A female teaching her pups to hunt could be a major problem, especially during years of low rabbit populations. Another problem was the occasional coyote that lost a foot in a steel trap, was unable to pursue its normal prey, and turned its attention to domestic sheep. Other ­predators were less of a problem but included mountain lions and black bears. This ushered in the era of the government trappers, who would use steel traps and animal carcasses for bait. Other methods were introduced; one of these was a cyanide gun that enjoyed brief popularity. It consisted of a piece of 1-inch-diameter pipe about 8 inches long that contained a firing mechanism and an above-ground extension upon which a piece of wool was attached. The wool was saturated with a strong scent, and the coyote would pull on the wool, which in turn set off a cartridge filled with cyanide and shot it into the animal’s mouth, usually resulting in a quick death. One poison was introduced but was soon outlawed because it was so deadly that any carnivore or scavenger, animal or bird, feeding on a carcass killed by the poison could ingest a lethal dose. However, the most effective strategy of coyote control was to find dens in the early spring and kill the females and dig out the pups. In addition, a bounty was also placed on coyotes. Besides the government trappers, there were usually enough coyotes and other furbearers to support a few independent trappers. True or not, it was often alleged that the government trappers could have eliminated the coyotes but they and other professional trappers always spared enough females to produce enough animals to ensure job security. In retrospect, I question this bit of folklore. Many decades of association with coyotes demonstrated their uncanny ability to adapt to changing conditions and circumvent attempts at eradication. Understandably, sheepmen were more concerned with coyotes and other predators than cattlemen. I recall one wool-growers meeting in the



The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 33

1950s where there was a never-ending discussion from several sheepmen on possible solutions to alleviate depredations by not only coyotes but also mountain lions and eagles. One prominent sheepman endured this as long as he could, grabbed his cane, pounded on the wall to get everyone’s attention, and, at the top of his lungs, announced to the audience that as far as he was concerned, he would let the coyotes take what they wanted if he could only figure some way to keep the bankers out of his flock. On this note the meeting broke up, and most headed to the nearest bar and proposed a universal toast of approval to this idea, though well aware that it was an impossible dream. During lambing time, a female or ewe would often have twin lambs but enough milk for only one, or a ewe would die, leaving a single lamb or a pair without a mother. These were known as bum lambs; some were needed to replace lambs that died for various reasons, and others were given away. The latter were always in demand by people with milk cows who could raise them on a bottle. I would nurture a dozen or more each year and made enough money to buy clothes and other necessities. I managed to keep the females and by the time I was 15, had a small bunch of sheep my uncles let me call my own, although I had to pay their feed bill. I felt really important when I was given my own registered livestock brand, the Y+. Having your own registered livestock brand was an important milestone for anyone in the ranching business. However, rapid changes were on the way. I clearly remember listening to the news of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. I had just turned 17 and wanted to join the armed services, but my grandmother could not bring herself to sign the necessary permission papers. However, the realities of war were soon realized when I learned that a relocation camp for West Coast Japanese families was being constructed near Powell, Wyoming, not far from our ranch. Another sobering event was learning that a neighbor’s son just two years older than me had enlisted in the Navy after graduation and was on the USS Arizona when it was bombed and sunk at Pearl Harbor. It was an eerie feeling many years later when my wife and I visited the USS Arizona Memorial built on top of the sunken ship, with oil bubbles continually floating to the surface, saw his name on the ship’s roster, and realized that he was still aboard. I graduated from high school in 1942 and then spent one quarter at the University of Wyoming, until I turned 18 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, I was sent to

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Newport, Rhode Island, to a Navy school to gain proficiency with gun control systems. It was rumored that we were being trained for destroyer duty, but the amphibious forces in the South Pacific needed new ships carrying small craft that delivered troops for beach invasions. The result of this was being sent across the country to another special gunnery training school in San Diego, California. After completing the San Diego school, I was sent to San Francisco, where I was assigned to a new vessel just being completed and soon to be commissioned. I well remember the shakedown cruise. It was my first time at sea, and about an hour or so out of the calm waters of San Francisco Bay, the intended result of a greasy pork chop meal fed to all Navy recruits on their first shipboard experience rapidly took over. For nearly two days and to the delight of the flocks of sea gulls crowding around the ship, it was impossible for me and the other first-timers to keep anything in our stomachs. Conditions finally improved, although I had never before in my life felt so miserable. It caused me to seriously question my choice of joining the U.S. Navy. After completing two special schools on gun control systems, I was disappointed that the ship did not have much in the way of firepower; there were several 40-millimeter and 20-millimeter antiaircraft and one 5-inch gun. The 40-millimeter batteries had a remote director system so that several could be controlled by one person. I especially enjoyed being a director operator and got good results on targets pulled by planes. In fact, it was almost like shooting ducks. However, this class of ship was almost always in a convoy of several ships in battle zones, so that enemy planes and submarines were usually intercepted by destroyers and destroyer escorts. As a result, rarely did we get the opportunity to unlimber what I regarded as our definitely inferior weaponry on an enemy plane. My Navy years in WWII were spent mainly on that one ship, the USS Navarro (APA-215), in the South Pacific, and except for a minor back injury, I suffered no major ill effects. The ship crossed the equator and the international date line on February 5, 1945, and, after the proper initiation, I was accorded the status of a trusted shellback and allowed entry into the Domain of the Golden Dragon (Figure 2.1). However, one other event remains quite vivid in my memory. In early 1945 we were in the Russell Islands in the South Pacific preparing for the coming invasion of Okinawa, Japan, when I looked at the ship’s occasional newspaper, a single mimeographed sheet posted in the galley, and one of the items said “Wyoming man kills



The Cattlemen, the Sheepmen, and World War II 35

Figure 2.1. Memorable event in World War II.

bear with club.” Reading further, I realized that it was referring to a man I knew who at one time had worked for my grandfather. He, Farney Cole, was a big man, exceptionally strong, and well known for his ability to break horses. At the time of this news release he was employed on a ranch owned by the Hearst family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was removing a beaver dam in an irrigation ditch when attacked by a female black bear. In repeating his story years later, he told me that he managed to pick up a tree limb, beaver-chewed on both ends, and, although severely mauled in the process, eventually killed the bear. Many stories about Farney Cole still surface; the most common is about the tourists who

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would inquire whether or not anyone believed the bear story. The reply was usually, “Hell no, Farney wouldn’t have bothered to use a club; he would have killed the bear with his bare hands.” Farney had an unusually heavy coat of hair over his body, and another story is that when they brought him into the hospital in Jackson, Wyoming, a nurse who saw him for the first time exclaimed, “My God, they brought in the bear instead of Farney.” After the U.S. Army troops were ashore at the invasion of Okinawa, the ship headed to the Philippines to load wounded army troops, who were unloaded in San Diego. The ship then headed for scheduled repair work in Seattle, Washington. I never did get entirely over my seasickness, and the combination of pitch and roll along the Pacific coast from San Diego to Seattle made for a miserable trip. After a week in Seattle, we took another load of troops to Okinawa and then sailed to Pearl Harbor and spent a day and a night at a rest camp, which was a welcome respite from ship routine. Not long afterward, we were cruising along in calm South Pacific waters in August 1945 when word came over the ship’s loudspeaker of an atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. At that time, I doubt that anyone on board the ship had more than the foggiest notion of what an atom bomb was or the implications it had for the future. The next day word came of a second atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and not long after this we learned that Japan had surrendered. As this last message was broadcast, a gunner’s mate working nearby yelled, turned a double somersault, and tossed most of the parts of the 20-­millimeter anti­ aircraft gun he was cleaning over the side. Understandably, the next few hours were a time of real celebration aided by carefully concealed sources of fermented liquors brewed from anything available, such as potato peelings or coconuts. Fortunately, the ship’s captain overlooked what in different situations would have been serious breaches of conduct against U.S. Navy rules and regulations and could have resulted in a lowering in rank, loss of pay, and even time in the brig. However, the glow of victory soon wore off, and normal shipboard routine was reestablished. A short time later the ship was ordered to the Philippines, where a contingent of U.S. Marines came aboard, and we set course for Tientsin, China, where I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Several days later, the same Marines came back aboard, and to avoid a typhoon, a stopover was made in Tokyo Bay. Another stop was made in Guam, and we then returned to the Philippines and took on a load of army troops and enough fuel to return to the States. Japanese mines were floating over much of the area, and



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we were allowed to destroy them by unlimbering the 20-millimeter and 40-millimeter antiaircraft guns. I calculated that we fired about as much ammunition at the mines as we did at enemy planes. That Golden Gate Bridge sure looked good. What was even better was a real meal of roast beef, fresh vegetables, and apple pie at the discharge center. As soon as I had my discharge papers, I thumbed my way back to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and from there took a bus the remainder of the way home. I was offered a chief petty officer’s rank to sign on (ship over) for two more years, but I was not interested in either more time aboard ship or shore duty and was discharged to return to a changed world. The ranch needed young blood if it was to continue. I worked long hours to rebuild fences, clean irrigation ditches, repair worn-out machinery, and patch up old buildings. I was happy to once more see the open plains and high mountains and see that the deer and elk populations had survived and increased during the WWII years. Above all, I could search for artifacts again around the springs, water holes, and Indian campgrounds where in earlier years I had spent many happy hours. My family members strongly recommended that I take advantage of the G.I. Bill and complete a college degree. In retrospect, it was probably good advice, but, especially after two periods of intense study in U.S. Navy schools (which would have been a good start for pursuing a degree in electrical engineering or a related area of study), I decided that I was not interested in spending time in a classroom and decided to take up ranch life where I had left it before joining the Navy.

‹3› The Post–World War II Ranching and Avocational Archaeology Years Soon after returning from the U.S. Navy in 1946, I happened to meet a former high school classmate, Carolyn June Glanville. During our high school years we were totally oblivious to each other, but now the chemistry immediately changed, and we were married later that same year. We set up housekeeping on the ranch, where improvements in lifestyle gradually materialized. The Rural Electrification Association brought reliable electricity to provide refrigeration and power other household appliances. Oil field exploration and production resulted in the availability of bottled gas, which rapidly began to replace wood and coal. New automobiles and fourwheel-drive vehicles also began to appear. In a few more years, TV signals were beamed into some of the more remote areas. However, to me one of the simple but most beneficial items to emerge during WWII was insulated footwear. Cold feet and frozen toes were no longer a major concern of long hours of outside work and riding for livestock in subzero weather. In addition, mechanical posthole diggers, backhoes, and chain saws began to relieve the drudgery of farmwork. Unable to have children, June and I were finally able, in 1956, to adopt our daughter, Carol. We could not have loved and accepted a biological offspring any more than we did her. One downside to the post-WWII ranching years was the infestations of crop-destroying insects. One of the worst was the alfalfa weevil, which could destroy the first seasonal cutting of hay, and the cutworm, which could appear overnight and destroy a field of grain while in its growing stages. Another insect pest was the sheep tick, which, if not controlled, could seriously affect an animal’s condition. At first, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) seemed to be the answer, but it was also lethal to honey­bees, was soon proved to be toxic, and before long had to be banned 38



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altogether to prevent loss of bird and other wildlife. I often wonder how I was able to survive the intensive use of DDT in that immediate postWWII period. Cattle also suffered from grubs and other pests and were sprayed with a different chemical solution under high pressure. In one case, the liquid from the spray drained into a stream and killed all the fish for an estimated 2 miles. Local sportsmen were understandably concerned, and new, nontoxic chemicals were soon developed to correct both situations. There was an interesting bit of news I was told about immediately after WWII as I arrived back at our ranch. Two men were riding after cattle for the Southsider Cattlemen’s Association on mountain grazing land adjacent to ours. It was summertime, and looking up into the mountain peaks one day well above the timberline, they noticed a reflection from a shiny object at about 13,000 feet (3,960 meters) in elevation. They suspected that it might be a plane, so they rode their horses as far as possible and then hiked the rest of the way up over the steep rocky terrain and discovered a four-­ engine B-24 bomber that had been missing for over two years. The plane had separated into two pieces on impact, and the front and largest part was over a rocky divide and in a snowbank that would only partially melt in summer due to the altitude. The crew of 10 were scattered about, and according to several eyewitness accounts, the facial features of some were well-enough preserved for them to be identified. There still remains some uncertainty as to why the plane was in this part of the country. Whether they had encountered bad weather, instrument failure, or something else is still debated. One thing that is for certain is that they were not supposed to be in the area at that time. Had they been just a few feet higher they would have cleared the rocks below. Access to the plane is difficult, but many persons, me included, could not resist making the trip. A much longer, but still difficult, route was later established that actually allowed access on horseback. The location was short of the top of the mountain, and higher up in a small area of grass I noticed the scattered skeletal parts of what appeared to be at least two bison. The front of the skull of one had been chopped open to expose the brain cavity, mute evidence of bison and human presence at some time in the past before the plane crash. This location was given the official name of Bomber Mountain. During the WWII years, deer and elk populations in the plains and mountain states increased, and many returning veterans looked forward to returning to their favorite hunting territories. For me, hunting was a well-established lifestyle, a respite from ranch work and an opportunity to

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acquire a supply of fresh meat. Home freezers were still a scarce item, but the weather after the hunting season was cold enough that meat wrapped with burlap and hung in the shade would freeze and last indefinitely. Word of the hunting potential spread rapidly, and hunters arrived from far and wide to exploit the situation. Most were unfamiliar with the territory, and some were willing to pay for guide services. I knew the territory and the best locations to find the animals, and one of my uncles and I started a small guiding service. It required long hours and hard work, but it brought in needed cash and a relief from ranch routine. It also provided an opportunity to meet people from other areas and discuss things outside our isolated community. I always disliked seeing the hunting seasons end because it meant the beginning of the long, cold winter, which required daily feeding, chopping water holes for livestock, and riding to check the condition of other animals spending the winter on the open range. Although spare time was limited, my interest in Indian artifacts never waned, a situation that was often a bone of contention with my uncles. I mentioned earlier that my interest in archaeology won out over paleontology even though the interior Bighorn Basin had many exposures of deposits containing dinosaur remains and other fossils. One of these exposures was close to a road between two small towns, and it became a stopping place for both interested locals and tourists. Stopping by the location one day, June and I noticed that the area was disturbed and the dinosaur bones were missing. The reason soon became clear: Following WWII there was a high demand for uranium, and the immediate result was what almost resembled an invasion of prospectors in any available four-wheel-drive vehicle, all carrying Geiger counters and aiming them at every likely spot; the prospectors soon discovered that many dino­ saur bones, including the ones in that special location mentioned above, were heavily impregnated with uranium. Many of the dinosaur remains were from the very large species, and the bones were very heavy. At that time there was a monetary reward of several thousand dollars for so many tons of uranium ore of a certain quality, and this exposure of dinosaur remains easily met the necessary requirements. It was also on federal land where, at that time, regulations regarding the removal of resources were poorly enforced. Different events related to archaeology regularly cropped up. For example, an artifact collector and dealer, James Allen, found projectile points



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Figure 3.1. Making final plans to start investigation at the Horner site in 1949: left to right — ​Robert Witter, Pearl Horner, Glen Jepsen, Albert Silberling, and James Allen (photo by Robert Richards; courtesy of the Cody Times).

in a scatter of bison bones near Laramie, Wyoming, and turned them over to William Mulloy, the first anthropologist to be hired at the University of Wyoming (UW) in 1947. Mulloy named it the James Allen site and gave the projectile points from the site the same name. Mulloy excavated the remainder of the site, which contained partial remains of several extinct bison and proved to be about 8,000 years old. He later published a short article on the results (Mulloy 1959). Mr. Allen later moved to Cody, Wyoming, and found another site there with bison bones and projectile points quite different from the ones from his first discovery. Mulloy was interested in the new discovery, but UW was unable to provide funding for fieldwork. Allen tried every possible source for help and was unsuccessful until he mentioned his findings to Glen Jepsen, the Princeton University paleontologist, who excavated annually in Eocene and Paleocene deposits about 30 miles from Allen’s most recent discovery. Jepsen was interested enough to change his 1949 summer excavation schedule and move to the bison bone bed that became known as the Horner site, after the name of the landowner, Pearl Horner. This event produced widespread public interest, enough, in fact, to merit a short note in Time magazine in September 1949

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with a photograph of Jepsen and Allen. I first learned about the Horner site and the persons involved from a newspaper article in the Cody Times published weekly in Cody (Figure 3.1). More on the Horner site appeared in the Casper, Wyoming, Star Tribune at about the same time, but there were no pictures of artifacts from the site in either article. However, an artifact collector from Casper, Wyoming, Virgil Y. Russell, provided pictures of Yuma points from his personal collection that he claimed were similar to those recovered from the Horner site and which were very different from any I had found. During the summer of 1951, I managed to break away from ranch work for a day and visit the Horner site. It was my first introduction to real fieldwork in archaeology, and I was totally fascinated with the way they recovered bones and artifacts and carefully recorded their daily activities. I would have liked to spend more time there, but ranch work could not be ignored. There was no one present at the time who could show me any of the points from the site, and it was nearly two years later that I was able to acquire a picture of three of the Horner site points, shown on the cover of the May 8, 1953, issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (Figure 3.2). This was far more than enough to elevate the blood pressure of any artifact collector. No one could have convinced me at that time that nearly two decades later I would become involved in more excavations and the analysis and publication of all of the Horner site investigations. This segment of the story was an important part of my academic life and will be presented later in its proper context. My grandmother maintained a strong interest in the ranch after my grandfather died, but poor health overtook her indomitable spirit, and she suffered a stroke in 1951. She was bedridden for three years and died in 1954 at age 88. She was the glue that held the family together after her husband died, and she often expressed hope that the ranch would continue as a family operation, but, for many reasons, her wishes were not to be realized. The ranching operation was not progressing as well as we had hoped. At the end of each year we were optimistic for better livestock prices that always failed to materialize. In addition, the increased age and health problems of my older uncles were draining their enthusiasm to continue. I mentioned earlier the winter of 1886–1887, which took a toll on the cattle business. I could remember it only from the accounts of those who were living here at the time but whose memories never allowed them to forget the disastrous results. Also alluded to earlier were the drought years



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Figure 3.2. Projectile points from the Horner site at Cody, Wyoming (from Frison and Todd 1987).

of the 1930s, which I witnessed firsthand but was too young to fully realize their impact on the livestock industry. However, I vividly remember the winter of 1949–1950. Snow started early in December and continued into January and February and was accompanied by extended periods of extreme cold. The sheep had to be removed from their winter range earlier than usual and fed until it was time to turn them out on the range in late May. We were fortunate to have enough hay to feed our animals through this bad winter, but it was difficult to keep enough ground clear to accom­modate

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them, especially with the wind continually drifting snow into the cleared areas. Fortunately, transportation was improved, and supplementary feed including corn from unaffected areas in western Nebraska was transported in. Still there was no relief from the bad weather, and as lambing time approached in early March, snow that had drifted into sheds and other facilities had to be removed to provide space for the arrival of newborn lambs, an event that could not be delayed. Most of the snow in the lower elevations had melted in time to celebrate my wife’s birthday on April 9, exposing many dead domestic and wild animals trapped earlier in fence corners and arroyos. It was a tough winter on wildlife also. Deer and elk were forced to survive on shrubs and trees exposed above the snow level, and very few of the old and infirm animals survived. A petroleum company had purchased a neighboring ranch the year before and had moved several hundred head of cattle to their new home in late fall. Lacking an adequate supply of feed, nearly a fourth of the animals died before spring. To shorten the story, it was a tough winter, but we were luckier than many other ranchers. Fortunately, climatic conditions improved, and we were able to return to what we considered more normal winters. On the other hand, these kinds of conditions leave a strong imprint and the resolve to store extra feed. It is better to have some left over than to suffer the consequences of not having enough. At that time we had not considered selling the ranch and decided to get back into the cattle business along with raising sheep. We had a good summer range, and for two years, we leased calves and yearlings to stay on the summer pastures from April to October, and the owners paid us a set price on the animals’ gain in weight. This venture proved moderately successful and, in 1951, encouraged us to invest in a small herd of Black Angus cattle that was offered for sale at what we thought was a reasonable price. We took the plunge, and after a lapse of 15 years, we were operating with both sheep and cattle. By this time the cattle and sheep factions were somewhat less antagonistic in their relations. This was evident from the occasionally heard and somewhat conciliatory remark that you had to raise cattle to be respectable, but it was acceptable to keep enough sheep around to make a little more money. The traditional cattle in the area were Herefords, and Angus cattle were looked upon with suspicion. Hereford breeders worried about interbreeding until they discovered that hybrid vigor produced a larger and more profitable beef carcass. One advantage of the Angus is that they are hornless,



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eliminating the dehorning process that, to me, was always unpleasant. Bright sunlight from a spring snow during calving would sometimes cause chapping and cracking on the light-colored udders and teats of Hereford cattle, and the results could be serious enough to cause a cow to refuse to suckle her calf. The only recourse was to corral and restrain the animal and treat the affected parts with a healing compound. This was a difficult and not always successful task and was not a problem with black cattle. For myself, however, there arose a different concern. Back trouble resulting from the combination of a WWII injury and hard work from handling livestock and everyday ranch work was increasingly painful. I sought help from a chiropractor, who referred me to a neurosurgeon in Billings, Montana, about 200 miles away. To shorten the story, I was operated on to remove a split spinal disk the day before Christmas, 1958. Fortunately, I had good back muscles and was able to walk out of the hospital five days later. The doctor cautioned me to desist from heavy work for at least a year, but calving and lambing time was fast approaching, and, not following his advice, I suffered a good deal of pain. It was time to think seriously about a different career or face the likelihood of permanent disability. The fall hunting business my uncle Ted and I had built up over several years was still in operation, although problems were beginning to surface. In the beginning, we were usually able to take a hunter out and, within a day or so, expect to bring him back to camp with a trophy animal. However, it was only a matter of a few years before hunting pressure on the elk and deer populations that had built up over the WWII years began to take its toll. This forced hunters to go farther and farther into isolated areas to find trophy animals. The next step was for the game managers to establish hunting areas and set quotas on animals for each area. The number of applicants always far exceeded the number of animals available, and drawings determined the outcome. We had a number of regular clients, but under the new system, there was no way any individual could be assured of success in obtaining a permit. This hurt our guiding operation because we could not be sure of who and how many clients we needed to prepare for. In addition, it took increasingly more time, more supplies, and more vehicles to keep the operation going. We were able to continue on a much smaller scale with deer and pronghorn hunters, but the halcyon days of trophy elk and deer hunting we enjoyed following WWII were a thing of the past, and we had to tell many of our elk-hunting clients to make different arrangements.

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My three uncles and I had earlier formed a ranch corporation, but, as mentioned earlier, they were advancing in age and not enthusiastic about continuing the operation. In addition to depressed livestock prices, none of the younger family members expressed serious interest in continuing the ranching business. All of this contributed to a level of discontent, and we began to discuss selling the ranch. We listed the place for sale with a realtor, but two years later it was still unsold, and my spouse confronted me and in no uncertain terms insisted that I find other work before I became too old and infirm to be employable. At this point I had to admit that she was right. By this time I had developed a serious interest in archaeology. A highly regarded consulting geologist, Emerson Parks, with a degree from Oberlin University moved into the area. He was also an accomplished cartographer and was sent to Egypt during WWII to map part of the Sinai Peninsula. Upon his return, he became a consultant on the placement of water wells in numerous towns in the Bighorn Basin area. After we became better acquainted, he expressed total contempt for my artifact collecting, stating that it was a completely worthless pursuit unless the results could be used to provide information at a higher level of inquiry. This pronouncement on what I had regarded as a respectable pursuit came as somewhat of a shock. I did not regard his words too seriously at the time, but similar, although less vitriolic, discussions with professional archaeologists I crossed paths with later on from time to time gradually reinforced the old geologist’s line of thinking. In the early 1950s, William Mulloy was the only University of Wyoming archaeologist teaching and doing fieldwork in the state. I believe that it is safe to say that nationwide, UW rated last or nearly so in admitting that archaeology was a valid academic study. Although there was enough evidence by this time to contradict it, the prevailing belief among most academic archaeologists was that the Plains area only witnessed any ­serious interest by Native American tribes after the introduction of the horse to exploit bison herds in historic times. To those who accepted this, there was no justification for prehistoric archaeology. This view would be rapidly dispelled in a few short years, especially after serious archaeological investigations increased along with the development of radiocarbon dating. Mulloy did his graduate work at the University of Chicago and wrote most of his dissertation on his analysis of materials from Pictograph Cave, a stratified archaeological site near Billings, along with a survey of several other sites on the Northwestern Plains. His dissertation (Mulloy 1958)



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aroused enough interest to cause other archaeologists and avocationals alike to take a closer look at Plains archaeology. One result was the establishment of the Wyoming Archaeological Society (WAS) in 1953 by a group of artifact collectors in the Sheridan, Wyoming, area. In 1957, several members volunteered to work at a site being excavated by Mulloy along the North Platte River in central Wyoming and from this experience believed themselves to be qualified enough to excavate several sites in their own area. I joined the newly formed society, but ranch work would not allow time to participate in any of the site excavations or field trips. However, another development at this time more than compensated for the lack of involvement in WAS. I was well aware of rumors about a large cave not far away as the crow flies but difficult to access from our ranch because of bad roads, deep canyons, and rough terrain. However, curiosity overtook me and June one day in the summer of 1953, and by consulting a person familiar with the geography of the area, my wife and I, after making at least two wrong turns, finally found the right location. The cave was just below the rim of the deep, narrow gorge of Spring Creek Canyon (Figure 3.3). Accessing it required a long walk up the bottom of the canyon, a climb up a steep talus slope, and then getting through a crack in a nearly perpendicular ledge of solid rock. A recent collapse just behind the entrance had exposed a dark level and scattered stone, bone, antler, and wooden objects on the slope below. I recovered what I could and later in the fall was able to take the collection to William Mulloy at UW. He was noticeably impressed, especially with the perishable materials, which included coiled basketry fragments, wooden atlatl parts, plant and animal fiber cordage, and pieces of prepared wooden shafts (Figure 3.3a–d). Mulloy had no monetary or other support to investigate the site but suggested that I show the collection to H. Marie Wormington, the archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Natural History, and to Earl Morris, the retired Southwestern archaeologist living in Boulder, Colorado. Both were enthusiastic, but Morris was especially interested because he believed that the artifacts closely resembled Southwest Basketmaker material, a subject with which at that time I could claim no familiarity. I named the site Spring Creek Cave and made two other trips there on slack days during the winter to collect more material. The following summer, I took Mulloy to the site for a quick visit, after which he offered to help me write a short paper on artifacts I had collected from the site. However, this never materialized because he became involved

Figure 3.3. Spring Creek Cave (top) and some of its special artifacts (bottom, a–d) (bottom photo by Robert Swaim).



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with Thor Hyerdahl, who, along with Carlyle Smith from the University of Kansas, accompanied him on a yearlong project doing archaeology on Easter Island. Mulloy eventually became so involved with Easter Island that he transferred his main interest there and did no more archaeological field research on the Northwestern Plains. I did manage to take the Spring Creek Cave materials to the Plains Anthropological Conference (PAC) in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1958, and the WAS members took materials they had recovered from their site excavations to the same conference. This generated enough interest that several professional archaeologists encouraged us to continue our efforts. All of this interest and effort in archaeology required time away from ranch duties and understandably resulted in ever-increasing contention with my uncles. Consequently, I could see an inevitable showdown looming in the not-too-distant future. There was still no indication that a sale of the ranch would occur in the near future. In retrospect, I believe that we all knew a sale would eventually occur but still hoped for an acceptable alternative. We even discussed leasing the operation to outside interests but concluded that this could easily meet with disaster. The outcome of these deliberations was to continue under the present conditions for two more years. It was a standoff whereby I promised to accept responsibility for my share of the work but stipulated that I would not relinquish my interest in archaeology. However, we were well aware that we were close to the end of our ranching operation.

The Stone Age Fair in Loveland, Colorado My uncle Robert Frison was an avid artifact collector who, like me, started when he was young. His wife and her family were from Fort Collins, Colorado, and this required that he spend some of his time visiting there. He became well acquainted with Judge Claude C. Coffin and Major Roy C. Coffin, who were avid collectors and, in 1924, had been credited with the discovery of the Lindenmeier Folsom site. I am convinced that Robert Frison’s dedication to artifact collecting was intensified by this association with the Coffin brothers and the Folsom materials from the Lindenmeier site. I am sure also that some of my artifact-collecting tendencies came directly from his influence. Northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming made up a rich area for artifact collectors that was intensified by the dust bowl days of the 1930s.

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The loss of vegetation along with winds that exposed large numbers of artifacts attracted collectors from far and wide. In addition there were several bison kill sites on both sides of the Colorado–Wyoming line that produced large numbers of projectile points. I met Major Roy Coffin in 1953, and he showed me a box containing what he claimed was more than 1,800 Late Prehistoric–age points from a bison kill just across the Colorado line in southern Wyoming and not far from the Big Laramie River. Another bison kill site is close to the North Platte River in Jackson County, Colorado, where more than 5,000 projectile points were reputed to have been collected. However, what I remember most is a copy of his publication on the Lindenmeier site (Coffin 1937). To me, this was a real treasure, and I never tired of looking at Coffin’s illustrations of Folsom projectile points and his ideas on their manufacture. Most of all, it fueled my desire to some day find one. With the wealth of artifacts in this area, it was inevitable that more and more people would be enticed into collecting. Most collectors like to display their finds and compare them with those of other collectors, and this led to what is known as the Stone Age Fair, which had its beginnings in 1934 in the small town of Cornish in northeast Colorado. In 1940 the event was moved to Loveland, Colorado, and it is still held there on the last weekend of September. From its beginnings in Cornish and later in Loveland, this event brought collectors and their artifacts for display from far and wide, and it also attracted the professionals who were encouraged to be speakers. The Stone Age Fair tries to maintain good relations between amateurs and professionals, and a large sign at the entrance clearly states that buying and selling artifacts are not allowed at the meetings. At one meeting, one individual was allegedly told to remove his display because it was recognized as one acquired in a different state, though claimed to have been found in southern Wyoming. The Loveland Stone Age Fair (LSAF) was and still is strongly supported by the town of Loveland, which provides the space and the police to guarantee security for the displays. I mentioned earlier that I had shown the Spring Creek Cave artifacts to several professionals and collectors in the northern Colorado area, and the latter group suggested that I should bring the assemblage to the Stone Age Fair. I wanted to do this, but the timing was bad; late September was a busy time on the ranch, with gathering cattle and finishing the haying and grain harvest. However, here was a development that seemed to add to the stature of collectors and collecting. Many of the collectors at the LSAF



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were highly respected members of their communities, and, as already mentioned, the event attracted some of the professional elite. This was real food for thought for an outsider like me. However, there was one sour note that developed before I left the ranch. Virgil Y. Russell was an affluent collector from Casper, whom I mentioned in the context of the Horner site at Cody, who had acquired a large collection of outstanding examples of what were then known as “Yuma” points. Russell displayed his collection first at the LSAF in 1949 and then at other times in the following years. He stopped by the ranch in the mid-1950s and asked to look at my collection. I had one broken Yuma point (later on named Eden) that he was particularly interested in. About a week later I received a letter stating that he would like to acquire this particular artifact because he was attempting to acquire all the Yuma points he could and someday donate the collection to some prominent museum. I did not like his approach or his attitude, and in addition, there were rumors afloat that the circumstances surrounding some of his acquisitions were suspect. In retrospect, this did not sound right and left an impression that this kind of activity was unprofessional. He published a book on artifacts (Russell 1951) and passed away some years later. This indirect contact with members of the LSAF organization over a period of years resulted in serious introspection on my own collecting tendencies. I gradually realized that many collectors, myself included, had evolved into self-anointed experts convinced that we had as many of the answers to prehistory as the professional anthropologists. However, about the same time the words of the crusty old geologist Emerson Parks re­ appeared, and I had to admit that he was correct: collecting is an addiction with no end except itself and justifiable only if the collected materials can be used at a higher level. Every day it was becoming more and more clear that to cross the barrier from collecting to scientific archaeology would require a clean break, not necessarily from collectors but from collecting. My view of the future seemed analogous to the yellow brick road in the movie The Wizard of Oz, with all of the pitfalls along the way and with no turning back. In retrospect, I have to say that the LSAF serves a worthwhile purpose in bringing collectors and professional archaeologists together, encouraging cooperation, and reducing antagonism between the two groups. ­Speakers invited to the annual meetings over the last seven decades constitute a “Who’s Who” of professional archaeologists, but not exclusively those

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interested in “early man,” now “Paleoindian,” research. I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at its fiftieth anniversary (see Yeager 1990). In addition, the LSAF association improves its image by providing modest monetary support for student research. There were three more sites that I became involved with just before I departed the ranching life. One, Leigh Cave, is a rockshelter along Ten Sleep Creek a short distance from home. Another, the Coal Draw site, is located in an area of sandstone bluffs and rockfalls in the southern Bighorn Basin. The third is Wedding of the Waters Cave at the location where the Wind River changes its name to the Bighorn River. I mention them because I was able to utilize the data from them to good advantage in graduate studies later on.

Leigh Cave Ten Sleep Creek, a major drainage on the western Bighorn Mountains slope, carved a deep canyon with perpendicular walls and a step talus slope extending from the bottom of the perpendicular walls to the stream. A half-mile stretch of the canyon along the north side of the stream is easily accessible and a favorite location for summer outings. At the age of about seven during one of these outings, I noticed a large opening at the top of the talus slope and decided to investigate. A rockfall formed a low barrier at the entrance, and I picked up a projectile point in a level area just behind it. Three decades passed before I returned to the location (Figure 3.4). Scraping away a thin surface layer protected by a rockfall revealed a surface hearth and fire-cracked rocks surrounded by charred remains of large numbers of Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex). Further clearing of the cave floor exposed a thick covering of outside husks of wild onion bulbs (Allium sp.) mixed with chokecherry (Prunus sp.) pits. Two small pieces of tanned hide, probably part of a garment, had holes on one side with pieces of two-strand, twisted plant fiber cordage in some of the holes. Along with this, other fragments of similar cordage, wooden shaft fragments, and plant fragments were recovered. In addition there were two projectile points, two mano stones, and a grinding slab. A Middle Plains Archaic (MPA) age was confirmed later on by a radiocarbon date of older than 4,000 radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP). I stored this assemblage, which later proved to be of value in my graduate school studies at the University of Michigan (UM). I named the site Leigh Cave because it was directly across the



The Post–World War II Ranching and Avocational Archaeology Years 53

Figure 3.4. Leigh Cave in Ten Sleep Creek Canyon.

canyon from the location where a titled Englishman, Lord Gilbert Leigh, fell to his death while hunting mountain sheep in the late nineteenth century. Later, a brief report on Leigh Cave was published (Frison and Huseas 1968). Before I seriously considered leaving the ranching business and returning to school, the cultural materials I recovered from Spring Creek, Leigh, and Wedding of the Waters caves began to change my thinking on prehistoric life on the Northwestern Plains. Apparently it was not all dominated by pursuing bison and other game animals, and the perishable materials from dry caves provided a foundation for looking at a broad base of prehistoric hunting and gathering.

The Coal Draw Site A large mineral hot spring is located at the town of Thermopolis in the Bighorn Basin in northern Wyoming. As the water cools, minerals precipitate out and, through time, add to a wide flat terrace for a distance along the eastern bank of the Bighorn River. Early visitors to the location claimed that Native Americans were attracted to the area and dug basins in the relatively soft mineral terraces, along with shallow trenches to lead hot

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water to the basins so that they could enjoy hot baths that were believed to have healing power. Consequently, it was regarded as a sacred area by Native Americans. Zola Van Norman and her husband owned a ranch in the Thermopolis area, with grazing land in an area west of the town. The erosion of soft shale deposits underlying a north-to-south-trending sandstone escarpment in this grazing land caused the collapse of great blocks of the several-meter-­ thick sandstone over a large area at the base of the escarpment (Figure 3.5, top). Several smooth faces of both the escarpment and some of the blocks were utilized to display an array of pecked figures known as Dinwoody-style petroglyphs, which occur in the Wind River–southern Bighorn Basin area. In the late 1950s, Zola and her husband were exploring along the base of the escarpment and found several fragments that, when refit, formed a carved steatite tube. Two more similar broken objects along with an unbroken one of sandstone were later recovered at the same location. When I saw them in 1959, I was skeptical of their authenticity until Zola took me to the location, where I found a steatite fragment that refit to one she had recovered. On the sandstone wall immediately above the location where the tubes were found was a large pecked figure (Figure 3.5, bottom) unlike any “Indian writing” I had ever seen, and nearby on other perpendicular walls were other large pecked figures. I never ceased to wonder about these artifacts and pecked figures, and 25 years passed before I was able to contact Zola again and inquire about the site and the artifacts. She was still patiently waiting for me or someone to investigate further what is now known as the Coal Draw site. It came to be a site of some importance, and results of the investigations performed after I became involved with UW are presented later.

Wedding of the Waters Cave Wedding of the Waters Cave produced a small amount of perishable and stone material similar to and of the same age as that from Spring Creek Cave. I showed the material to Preston Holder and his wife, Joyce, from the University of Nebraska one day when they were traveling through our area. They decided that the material was interesting enough to merit a short note in the Plains Anthropologist (PA). I described the materials, and with a considerable amount of necessary and deeply appreciated advice and editing from the Holders, the article was published (Frison 1962).

Figure 3.5. Coal Draw site area (top) and a pecked figure on a sandstone column at the location of the carved stone tubes (bottom, left); details of the pecked figure (bottom, right). Pecked figure is 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) tall (drawing by Linda Olson).

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At the termination of the same PAC where I brought the Spring Creek Cave materials in 1958, Preston Holder from the University of Nebraska and Donald Lehmer from Dana Collage in Omaha, Nebraska, backed me into a corner and pointed out that it was time to either cease my collecting, go to school, and acquire enough credentials to realize a professional status or else continue as I was and wear the label of a collector with no possibility of recognition as a professional archaeologist. Furthermore, they emphasized that what I was doing, especially in dry-cave deposits, resulted in the destruction of valuable evidence and would never be accepted as professional activity. They pulled no punches in emphasizing that it was a long, difficult road to follow, probably with different degrees of personal satisfaction but no guarantee of monetary rewards. After more serious discussions with my spouse, she unequivocally supported my return to school for whatever time and effort would be required. One major concern was for our daughter, who would be uprooted from a familiar school atmosphere and classmates. In 1961, the American Association for the Advancement of Science held its annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Bill Mulloy had mentioned to me earlier that he would be going and suggested that I might be interested. In addition, Marie Wormington called and said that since the meeting was in Denver, she would like to have us visit. It was a relatively mild winter; the cattle and sheep were on fall pasture, and with no immediate crisis looming, June and I decided to attend the meeting. It was on this occasion that I was able to meet a person whose name and writing I was familiar with but had not met, Jesse Jennings from the University of Utah. I had joined the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in 1956 and was duly impressed with Jennings’s (1957) monumental work at Danger Cave. Needless to say, this volume was far beyond anything I could even begin to assimilate. I was impressed by the amount of time and effort expended on fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and writing necessary to see the final product. It made my own feeble efforts at collecting artifacts from small cave sites seem inconsequential, but, on the other hand, I was pleased to see similarities in some of the perishable materials including coiled basketry and cordage. I discovered that Jennings had a sense of humor; he laughed when I told him that I had found parts of two atlatls in Spring Creek Cave and could not find any recorded in his Danger Cave volume. It turned out that our future contacts were always on the positive side.



The Post–World War II Ranching and Avocational Archaeology Years 57

Marie Wormington had organized a session on archaeology along with a banquet for the participants. It was quite a milestone to sit at the same table with Marie Wormington, Bill Mulloy, Jesse Jennings, Joe Ben Wheat, and their spouses, and I am certain that they all wondered just why June and I were there. We enjoyed the event, but on the way home I told June that I did not want to attend another conference as an outsider and would attend only as a professional or on the way to becoming one. ­ aiting She agreed with me wholeheartedly, but we both realized that w much longer could result in a loss of our determination to make the break. At this moment we made our final decision, and there was no turning back. Our family, friends, and neighbors were convinced that we were completely insane to give up ranching life for an uncertain future. I am sure that had a poll been conducted among these same individuals, I would have been given a year at the most to regain some measure of common sense. However, even though we had no well-defined plan for the future, we were determined to embark on a different career. On July 12, 1962, at age 37, I gave up ranching, June and I packed up our belongings, and I started summer school classes at UW to work toward an undergraduate degree in preparation for graduate school. I have to admit that we both shed a few tears as we left the ranch for the last time. It had been our home for over 16 years, and we had accumulated many positive memories there to reflect on throughout the coming years. On the other hand, we were optimistic concerning the future but apprehensive about our ability to adapt to an entirely different lifestyle. As I looked at the ranch that day, my thoughts went back to the summer of 1901 when my grandparents and their family arrived at this same location. My grandfather was 38 years old, one year older than me, when he made the decision to leave his position as a railroad engineer, uproot his family, and move into a different lifestyle in a new and unfamiliar country. He faced the same measure of disbelief from his family and friends that I was experiencing from family members and others left behind. I reflected on this many times in later years and decided that we had more in common than I had ever suspected.

‹4› The Back-to-School Years

It was a difficult transition from stacking hay bales, irrigating ­meadows, and building fences to sitting in a classroom, struggling through freshman English and introductory anthropology. I managed to scrape up a few academic credit hours from the quarter I was at UW in 1942 and from special schools I had attended while in the Navy in WWII, but this was far from enough to put me above the level of a college freshman. However, by enrolling in correspondence courses, bypassing introductory level classes, and taking course overloads, I finished a B.A. degree at the end of summer 1964 with a high-enough grade average to receive a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for my first year of graduate school. Following William Mulloy’s advice, I applied to and was accepted by UM for graduate school, and in August 1964, we loaded our belongings in a pickup truck and traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to begin what proved to be a very different experience from that at UW. Lacking anything resembling a strong background in anthropology, I was convinced that the anthropology faculty at UM was not allowing me much of a chance to survive. However, I managed to maintain a respectable grade average that first semester and even began to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the second. Time passed quickly, and it was time to think about finding funding for the second year of graduate school or else finding work and temporarily dropping out of the graduate program. James B. Griffin came to my rescue, and because I had some field experience and had published a short article in PA (Frison 1962) and the Spring Creek Cave article had been accepted for publication in Ameri­ can Antiquity (Frison 1965a), he came up with a possible solution. He suggested that I contact Mulloy at UW and try to convince him to apply for 58



The Back-to-School Years 59

a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to excavate a bison kill site I was familiar with and request additional funding for me, as the assistant principal investigator in the field, to analyze and write up the results. Even though Mulloy was planning to return to Easter Island, he agreed to my proposition, but only if I would write the proposal, subject to his final approval. I followed his instructions, and probably in large part because at that time NSF was encouraging research projects at smaller institutions, the grant was approved. The site, located in east-central Wyoming, was known as the Piney Creek bison kill, and in summer of 1965, I took over the excavations at the same time Mulloy departed for Easter Island. The summer excavation proved successful, and I was eventually able to utilize the results as part of my Ph.D. dissertation at UM. Fortunately, I had a background in surveying. I had used a transit regularly to survey irrigation ditches on the ranch and for some of the neighbors. The old geologist I mentioned earlier, Emerson Parks, took me under his wing one day and instructed me in mapping with an alidade and plane table. In 1958, I spent a weekend with Mulloy and helped excavate two tipi rings at a reservoir site he was excavating along the North Platte River in southern Wyoming. Mulloy taught a field school class where, in spring of 1963, I was able to help excavate at a site close to Laramie, Wyoming, with Late Archaic, Late Prehistoric, and Early Historic components. Dennis Stanford and I did some preliminary work at the Piney Creek site in summer of 1964 and published a short report on the results (Frison 1965b). Before departing for graduate school at UM in 1964, I was able to visit the Hell Gap site near Guernsey, Wyoming, for two days, where Cynthia and Henry Irwin were excavating with a Harvard University crew and where I was able to observe the fundamentals at least of dealing with a deep, stratified Paleoindian site. Mulloy probably had some misgivings but apparently believed that I had enough field experience to supervise the Piney Creek excavations during his absence. Archaeology was experiencing the culture history versus culture process crisis at the same time I was at UM. Lewis Binford was the influential leader of the culture process group, while the culture history group rallied around Gordon Willey. Kent Flannery (1967) presented what I thought at that time was the most realistic and understandable discussion of both sides of the argument in his critical review of Willey’s (1966) major publication on North and Middle American archaeology. The ensuing debate reached deep into the profession, but it eventually brought about what I believed

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were positive changes in both research and interpretation, which were enhanced further by a new emerging technology. However, the third year of graduate school was fast approaching, so I applied for a student loan at UM. They called me and my wife in for a conference with the headman. He studied the written materials I had filled out and, after some thought, inquired if we were seeking a loan for a son or daughter. When I told him that the loan was for me, he gave me a strange look, stamped “Approved” on the application, and waved me out of his office. The loan was a real lifesaver. I found it hard to believe that interest on the loan was only 3 percent and part of it could be repaid by teaching. This was somewhat different from my experiences in the ranching business. There I had to convince the local bank manager to loan me money at 6 percent interest, and I would hope that the price of livestock would be enough to pay it off when the livestock went to market in the fall. Shortly after the beginning of the second semester of my second year of graduate school, Griffin summoned me to his office, casually told me to prepare for preliminary exams in the spring, and abruptly went back to his work, indicating that the interview was terminated. After recovering from the shock, I went into two months of long hours, little sleep, and constant fear attempting to absorb enough information to correct my background deficiencies. I was close to a basket case when the week of the exams arrived, and waiting for the results was even worse. Several days later I passed one of my professors, Arthur (Art) Jelinek, in a hallway, and as we passed he said one word: “Smile.” The world suddenly looked brighter, and Art Jelinek immediately became one of my favorite people; that night we demolished a bottle of good Scotch whiskey. My wife and daughter were equally pleased, and I wonder to this day if the UM faculty members figured that the best thing to do was to offer me Ph.D. candidacy and encourage me to finish my research, write a dissertation, and get out of their hair. Although common on college campuses today, nontraditional students such as me, at that time, fit well in the concept of square pegs in round holes. I was still without any definite plan of what to do after graduate school. I did not feel comfortable pursuing any of the mainstream research areas being pursued by other graduate students. These geographic areas included the Mississippi Valley, the Southeast, the Southwest, Mesoamerica, and South America. I was the only one of the group expressing a desire to do serious research on the Northern and Northwestern Plains, and my .



The Back-to-School Years 61

interests there were becoming more and more oriented toward bison-­ related research problems. The earlier concept that the Plains were largely devoid of prehistory before the introduction of the horse allowed bison to become a dependable food source was still lingering. On the other hand, my 1965 summer excavations at the Piney Creek site were able to produce a wide range of stone and bone tools along with various features utilized in the butchering and processing of bison, and an associated campsite provided a basis to propose some of the social activities involved. One other event at UM served to arouse thinking about an approach to archaeology that might be employed to my advantage. All graduate students were informed one day that there would be a showing of John Marshall’s film The Hunters. When the viewing was over and comments were invited, I responded that it violated just about all rules of intelligent hunting. When asked on what authority my comments were based, I said that they were based on several years of experience as a professional big-game guide and outfitter, but with North American big game and not giraffes. However, I argued, one basic rule was not to pursue a wounded animal the way it was presented in the film; instead, leave the animal alone until the effects of the wound force it to lie down. I noted also that the way they harassed the animal in the end just before it was shot in desperation was a true debacle. I knew that none in the audience took my comments seriously, especially the comment about shooting the animal, but I suddenly realized that most archaeologists did not understand how to survive by hunting and here was a niche that I might capitalize on in the future. It came to pass that this was good thinking. However, I still believe that it is unfortunate that most students in anthropology view the John Marshall film and are led to believe that it represents a true portrayal of humans hunting. I have always been critical of the interpretations of hunting by many artists who were obviously unfamiliar with the subject. These renditions unfortunately appear too frequently in textbooks and periodicals. One common theme is hunters driving animals into bogs where they are then immobilized and killed. Healthy animals like to frequent boggy areas (see Frison 1991:Figure 2.2), and the ones that cannot extract themselves are old, sick, or otherwise undesirable for food. In my personal experience, killing an elk in a swampy area resulted in greatly increased effort to remove it from the bog and difficulty keeping the meat clean during butchering and processing. A better solution is to drive the animal out of the swamp and

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kill it on dry land. Drawings of mammoths mired in bogs with only the head exposed and surrounded by spear-wielding hunters are common and totally ridiculous; it would have been impossible to retrieve any of the carcass. Another favorite is a mammoth or other large animal partially immobilized and being pelted with rocks (see, e.g., Irwin et al. 1962). Yet another artist’s idea involves one or more hunters waving a blanket and shouting at a group of bison, causing them to leap over a precipice to their deaths (see Gladwin 1947). This kind of activity does not fit within the behavior patterns of bison. The idea of driving animals with fire experienced brief popularity, but I could never accept it. Range fires were an unwelcome but regularly occurring part of ranching life, and one soon learned the unpredictability involved once a fire was started. In recent years the concept of “controlled burn” is used by range management people for deliberate fires designed to control vegetation and reduce fire hazards. Controlled burns are well known for getting out of control and burning large areas, providing more evidence that driving animals with fire was not a good procurement strategy. On the other hand, with adequate precipitation after a range fire, green grass rapidly appears and attracts all grazing animals. I am sure that prehistoric hunters were well aware of and took advantage of this. The Montana Archaeological Society (MAS) was formed along the same lines as the WAS, and, as was the case in the latter, its membership consisted of both professionals and avocationals. At the annual meeting of the MAS in 1961 in Billings, Montana, the main event was the “Symposium on Buffalo Jumps” attended by several individuals whose main interests centered around this particular topic. The symposium papers were published as MAS Memoir No. 1 (Malouf and Conner 1962). It was a good beginning toward a systematic study of bison and bison procurement. As I studied the document, I noticed that it provided a good basis for understanding the artifacts and features involved in bison jumps and pounds (corrals) but provided little toward an understanding of the behavioral characteristics of bison that allowed them to be taken in these kinds of features. After further pondering of the problem I wondered if bison behavior might be a significant addition to understanding bison procurement and make the entire subject more acceptable as an academic pursuit. H. P. Lewis was a schoolteacher in Chouteau, Montana, who became interested in buffalo jumps, and although his main interest was in the projectile points in the bone piles at the bottom of the jump-offs, he compiled



The Back-to-School Years 63

descriptions of the drive-line systems at several sites (Lewis 1947). Unfortunately, he never finished his manuscript, but when I read what he had completed, I realized that he was thinking also about the logistics involved in driving a herd of bison and forcing them to go over a jump-off. His descriptions of the long and complex drive-line system of what was known as the Two Medicine Bison Jump in northern Montana inspired me to consider a dissertation project that involved the Piney Creek site mentioned earlier and another jump site about 25 miles away, the Big Goose Creek Bison Jump (Frison, Wilson, and Walker 1978), which had an associated drive-line system, campsite, and processing area. I believed that I had enough supporting evidence that both sites were of prehistoric Crow Indian origin, and my committee did not come up with serious reservations with this contention, so I embarked on this final effort. The foundation for my dissertation was to establish a strong case for a prehistoric Crow Indian occupation of the Tongue, Powder, and Bighorn River drainages in northeast Wyoming and south-central Montana. Part of this relied on historic and ethnographic accounts, but the best data finally rested on radiocarbon dates from the Piney Creek and Big Goose Creek sites and a relatively small collection of ceramics. The amount of ceramics involved could almost be labeled as nonexistent compared with prehistoric ceramic-producing cultures such as Plains Village along the Missouri River and its drainages to the east and the Anasazi to the south and west, but what did appear proved significant. Most of the sherds came from the Piney Creek and Big Goose Creek sites on the east side of the Bighorn Mountains. I had finished fieldwork at the Big Goose Creek site in 1976 and was making final visits to locations where ceramics had been found when a bit of pure and unexpected luck came my way. Close to our former ranch, now sold and under new ownership, I noticed a shallow wash formed by a recent heavy rain. Several pottery sherds and other artifacts were visible in the outwash material, and others were in profile in a habitation level on both sides of the wash. With June’s help, I was able in the next two days to recover a small assemblage of stone points, stone and bone tools, and pottery sherds in a habitation level, along with two small stone circles identical to those from Piney Creek and Big Goose Creek. We were able to refit the sherds into the most complete Crow vessel I was able to document (Figure 4.1), and it fit well in my argument for a Crow Indian occupation. This event was a bit of serendipity; the Ten Sleep Creek site was just over a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the ranch house in

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Figure 4.1. Reconstructed Crow Indian ceramic vessel from the Ten Sleep Creek site.

which I was raised. I returned to the location two years later hoping to continue excavations, but the entire site area had been removed by construction involved with the relocation of an irrigation canal. However, by that time I had acquired enough Crow Indian ceramics to publish a short article (Frison 1976a). An unrelated subject that came up while I was at UM was the possible source or sources of natural or volcanic glass (obsidian) found in Middle Woodland Hopewell archaeological sites. This led to the process of neutron activation and the conclusion that this material came from Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming (Griffin et al. 1969). I was interested in this because obsidian is found in archaeological sites throughout the Northwestern Plains, and a reliable means to trace it from site to source would be a valuable research tool. I had recovered artifacts of what I believed to be a nonvolcanic form of natural glass and had accidentally come upon a source of similar material in the burned-out coal bed area of southeast Montana (Frison et al. 1968). At this time, it is the only known



The Back-to-School Years 65

source of this material that I am aware of — ​and a project that nearly five decades later needs further research. The student loan money allowed me to spend enough time in the field in the summer and fall of 1966 to gather enough data to finish a dissertation in winter 1966–1967. I passed my oral exams and was anointed as a new Ph.D. in anthropology on May 7, 1967, four years, nine months, and 25 days after leaving the family ranch in Wyoming. I had applied for a position that had just opened in the recently formed Anthropology Department at UW; I was offered the position provided I complete a Ph.D. by the time the fall semester began. My family and I, having satisfied this requirement, again loaded our belongings in the pickup truck, and with the sights and sounds of the 1967 Detroit riots in our rearview mirror and on the radio, we started back down the same road we had traveled on our way to Ann Arbor three years before. It was a much faster trip this time because Interstate 80 was completed nearly all the way. Although we had both positive remembrances and results from our three years in Ann Arbor and at UM, we were ready to return to the open plains and mountains.

‹5› Beginning an Academic Career

As mentioned earlier, UW in 1966 decided to establish a separate Department of Anthropology. There were only two full-time anthropology faculty members at the time, and unable to foresee a strong future at UW, one of these decided to accept a position at the University of Colorado at Boulder, leaving his position at UW open. I applied for and was offered his position. They also hired a cultural anthropologist, so it was now a three-person department. Upon my arrival at UW in June 1967, I was informed that neither Mulloy nor the other newly hired person was willing to serve as department head. After several days of discussions among the dean, department heads, and UW president, they notified me that they wanted me to serve as a temporary department head. I reluctantly agreed, although well aware that no one could be less prepared than me for such a position. A year later it was upgraded to a permanent position, one I kept for 20 years. It came as no surprise that an archaeologist was not a highly regarded position or even one needed at UW. The Arts and Sciences dean was attempting to build a strong science center and openly regarded archaeology as a weak science. In a state such as Wyoming, with vast natural resources, the Geology Department understandably enjoyed a strong position, and the Geology Department head summoned me to his office and informed me that anything that came out of the ground came under the discipline of geology and he did not believe archaeology could produce anything worthwhile. Years later our relationship improved, and he conceded that his assessment at that time was based mostly on the monetary value of what came out of the ground. The dean of Arts and Sciences, in an unguarded moment, said that he regarded archaeology as “piddling research” and emphasized that I was expected to conduct research in Wyoming archaeology as soon 66



Beginning an Academic Career 67

as possible but my funding would have to come from outside sources. Fortunately, I knew of a bison jump site with promise of yielding a large faunal assemblage, so I wrote up a proposal to the NSF for the following year. The vice president for research read the proposal and stated that he would be surprised if it were even considered. The proposal was approved, but the VP never called me to admit any element of surprise. It was not exactly a rousing welcome to the academic world. These developments left me with mixed emotions concerning the future. I was assigned a relatively heavy teaching load but was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed teaching and the students, several of whom became interested enough to pursue courses in Northwestern Plains prehistory beyond the introductory level. Two other students were interested enough to join the 1969 field crew that would excavate the Glenrock, Wyoming, bison jump site approved by NSF. At this point in time, the future looked a little brighter. Another bright spot was being able to attend regional and national conferences. One in particular is memorable; since June and I had not been out of the United States since we were married in 1946, we were pleased to learn that the annual meeting of the SAA was scheduled to take place in Mexico City in 1970. We were allowed also to take our daughter out of school for a week, provided she kept a record of her trip and wrote a paper to be presented to her class on the archaeological sites we visited in the Mexico City area. Since I was required to teach a course in North American archaeology that included a brief survey of Mesoamerica, it was a chance to add a more realistic view of the subject and not rely entirely on the contents of a textbook. The downside of the trip was that we all contracted Montezuma’s revenge and required some time to completely recover. About the time I departed ranch life in 1962 the WAS gained strength and added two new state chapters. The Sheridan Chapter of WAS improved its stature by adding Donald Grey, a physics instructor at Sheridan Junior College, to its membership. Grey was an innovative sort and managed to acquire enough WWII surplus materials to assemble a radiocarbon-­dating apparatus. His efforts were greeted with skepticism by most everyone, but he ran a number of dates and saved parts of his samples that he later ana­ lyzed when he left to pursue doctoral work at the University of Arizona radiocarbon laboratory; his results there were remarkably close to his earlier ones. Grey also became proficient at collecting and analyzing tree ring ­samples and provided a date of probable Early Historic or Late Prehistoric

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age for the Bighorn Medicine Wheel that was built atop the Bighorn Mountains (Grey 1963). In 1965, several of the more forward-thinking WAS members began to explore the possibility of establishing an official position of a state archaeologist, but when the proposal was presented to the state legislature, it was greeted with anything but enthusiasm. The not-too-surprising reaction of many legislators was, Why should the state pay someone to tell us how to pick up arrowheads? However, some of the WAS members had political connections and were able to lobby legislators and keep the proposal from a quick death, and in 1967 it squeaked by and was approved. Fortunately, Mulloy was allowed a strong voice in establishing the requirements for the position. He insisted that the individual needed a Ph.D. in anthropology with an archaeological concentration and, in addition, had to be a member of the UW Department of Anthropology. Due to some obscure political maneuvering, the position was approved but was assigned to a state agency known as the Wyoming Recreation Commission (WRC) and totally separate from UW. Mulloy was not interested in applying, so I was the only eligible candidate and was able to accept the position only because I was on a nine-month appointment at UW. As I was the first person to occupy the position, and because the officials in that agency were at a loss as to what my duties should entail, they told me to proceed in what I believed was in the best interest of the state’s cultural resources. The state did provide a modest salary and travel budget. Prior to this, there had been relatively few attempts to evaluate Wyoming archaeological resources. In 1930, E. B. Renaud, an archaeologist from the University of Denver and trained in France, began a series of archaeological surveys in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and western Nebraska. Renaud collected surface materials from the drainages of the Blacks Fork of the Green River in southwest Wyoming that, to him, bore a strong resemblance to early Paleolithic artifacts in Europe. He named this the Black’s Fork Culture (see Renaud 1938); he sent samples to colleagues in Europe who confirmed the similarity. However, unable to find these materials in a datable geologic context, the concept of the Black’s Fork Culture eventually died a natural death, especially following Floyd Sharrock’s (1966) publication of investigations centered around the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in southwest Wyoming and northeast Utah. However, Renaud traveled more of Wyoming and recorded archaeological sites, especially those with rock art, now referred to as petroglyphs and pictographs.



Beginning an Academic Career 69

A Wyoming archaeological survey was initiated in 1940, with one of Renaud’s former students, Ted Sowers, as director and funded by the Work Projects Administration (WPA). The major results were documentation of several rock art sites throughout Wyoming and excavation of the Dinwoody Cave and camp site on the Wind River Indian Reservation (Sowers 1941). The project ended abruptly when WPA funds were exhausted. A large artifact assemblage was recovered but was misplaced; the Wind River Reservation Indians claimed that it was taken to UW, but it could not be found there. It eventually turned up at Fort Washakie on the reservation, but the Indians in charge there refused to release the materials for study and now claim that they buried them at an undisclosed location on the Wind River Indian Reservation. I know of no further mention of Ted Sowers in the context of Wyoming archaeology. Because relatively little was known about Wyoming’s cultural r­ esources, I initiated a statewide inventory of these resources, along with limited fieldwork in selected sites that demonstrated promise of yielding components that could be radiocarbon dated in association with diagnostic artifacts that would help to establish a prehistoric chronology. In retrospect, I believe that it was a good strategy, but it was short-lived. One half of Wyoming is federal land with vast natural resources. Adding to the confusion was that on some private lands the landowner owns the surface rights but the federal government retains subsurface rights. Under these conditions, contention between landowners and energy developers was unavoidable. With the energy boom gaining momentum in the late 1960s, exploitation of these resources required massive surface disturbance, and the inventory and mitigation of the cultural resources involved soon overwhelmed the resources of the state archaeologist’s operation. Consequently, I withdrew to an advisory status until a full-time state archaeologist position was established in 1984. Following this, I resigned that position and devoted full time to teaching and research funded by different money-granting agencies and individuals. The Wyoming state archaeologist was elevated to a fulltime position in 1984 and was accepted by Mark Miller, one of my former students. The energy boom in Wyoming at this time resulted in an influx of federal regulators who assumed control and management of cultural resources on federal lands and created uneasy relationships between this group and academic archaeologists. Many of those in the Interior Department Bureau of Land Management (BLM) were unfamiliar with Plains archaeology and

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lacked the training and experience to evaluate the research potential of the cultural resources they were managing. They attempted to dictate research procedures through what became known in their jargon as “research design.” Disapproval of a research proposal, along with their power of office, too often led to its rejection. Some appeared unable to comprehend that it was not possible to design an unalterable research plan ahead of time in order to investigate buried archaeological resources. To me, and many other researchers, it was a classic example of the tail wagging the dog. I always argued that cultural resource management should operate to facilitate research and not to try to dictate it. The situation deteriorated to the extent that the SAA president at the time, Charles R. McGimsey, tried to get a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee organized to resolve the problem, but the effort died due to lack of support. On the other hand, I had good relationships with many BLM archaeologists. I was especially pleased when Gerald ( Jerry) Clark and Burton (Burt) Williams from the Montana BLM went out of their way to get me involved in the Mill Iron Paleoindian site in eastern Montana. Even so, I could foresee a never-ending antagonism between cultural resource management and academics and knew that it would be better for both me and archaeology to stick to the academic world. I maintained a productive relationship with the WAS, which was attracting more members, some from out of Wyoming. Many were genuinely interested in archaeology and were comfortable working with ­professionals. Stuart Conner, an attorney from Billings, Montana, was both a MAS and WAS member and in 1967 made a special trip to photograph a large petroglyph site in northern Wyoming. He happened to observe that the landowner was leveling the ground at the base of the bluff with the petroglyphs displayed immediately above. The land-leveling machine cut deep into the ground and scattered bone and stone artifacts over a large area; Conner gathered what he could and sent the items to me at UW. My immediate gut reaction was that this could be a site of some importance, so I immediately contacted the landowner, who agreed to cease his dirt-moving operation and actually admitted that he was interested in what our investigation might reveal. Testing of the site over the next two years confirmed more than 4 meters of stratified cultural deposits representing about 8,000 years of human occupation and a likely possibility of still older deposits. We named this the Medicine Lodge Creek (MLC) site, and from these early results, NSF funded a three-year project for excavation and analysis.



Beginning an Academic Career 71

Robert Frison was an avid artifact collector and lived in northeast Wyoming, and in 1943 he met with a sheep rancher, William Spencer, at a remote spot in southeast Wyoming where Spencer was finding large bones and long, lanceolate-shaped projectile points eroding out of an arroyo bank. The points were exceptionally well made and d ­ ifferent from any others my uncle was familiar with. My uncle had attended high school in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he made the acquaintance of the Coffin brothers, who were artifact collectors and, in addition, gained notoriety for their discovery of the Lindenmeier Folsom site in northern Colorado. Frank H. H. Roberts, the Smithsonian Institution archaeologist who investigated the Lindenmeier site in 1935 and 1936, had also lived in Fort Collins, and he and my uncle had regularly exchanged information concerning the Folsom Cultural Complex. With this background, my uncle contacted Roberts, who was interested enough in the new discovery to make the trip west, and with Roberts’s brother, who lived in Fort Collins, the trio spent a short time at the site in 1942 and uncovered more bones and several projectile points. Roberts (1943) agreed that the projectile points were quite old but could only speculate on their actual age. It is claimed that he discarded the bones, thinking that they were modern Bison bison. However, after studying Roberts’s impeccable field notes from his investigation of the Lindenmeier Folsom site in Colorado, I believe it highly unlikely that he would have discarded them. The bison were almost certainly extinct Bison antiquus, and I believe that he had unfortunately recovered only female skulls and no male skulls for comparison. The situation demonstrates the dearth of knowledge concerning bison evolution and speciation at that time. They named this the Agate Basin (AB) site, another one I was destined to become deeply involved with three decades later. Early man became the first umbrella term for the older archaeological sites (Wormington 1957), which was later changed to Paleoindian. It gradually developed into a specialized area of study that needed input from specialists in many fields, including geology, paleontology, soils, and palynology. Paleoindian sites are often deeply buried and were formed under climatic conditions that resulted in plant and animal distributions different from the present. Site-formation process became a standard term in Paleo­ indian studies and allowed archaeology a stronger claim as a true science. A more reliable chronology of Paleoindian cultural complexes was realized in the 1960s by improvements in radiocarbon dating and the results of the

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1962–1966 exploration and analysis of the Hell Gap (HG) site in southeast Wyoming by Harvard University (see Irwin-Williams et al. 1973). HG was yet another site I would become deeply involved with more than two decades later.

Historic Sites and Archaeology The recently formed WRC under which the Wyoming state archaeologist position was placed was instructed to begin development of state parks and historical sites. I was not committed to any major fieldwork projects in the spring and early summer of 1968. After UW classes were done the WRC requested that I attempt to locate several buried features at Fort Phil Kearny on the Bozeman Trail between Sheridan and Buffalo in northern Wyoming, which was scheduled for development as a tourist attraction. Historic sites archaeology was still in its infancy, and the historian involved in this project believed that the written records kept by the U.S. Army were correct and was skeptical of anything that might be revealed by archaeological excavation. The Indians had burned Fort Phil Kearney shortly after it was abandoned by the army, and no evidence of the original above-ground structures was visible. One feature the WRC wanted to find was the base of the flagpole. Its suspected location was measured from written army records. I put in a 5-by-5-foot test unit at the designated spot with no success, and a shallow trench 10 feet to the north produced identical results. However, a 10-foot trench to the south encountered a wooden log that proved to be one of four placed to support the bottom of the flagpole, which was still in place and in salvageable condition well below ground level (Figure 5.1). The WRC wanted also to determine the location of the main entrance on the east side of the fort. As with the flagpole, its presumed location was calculated from the army records and was off by several feet. The historian was finally convinced after I exposed the tops of a long line of contiguous, burned-off stockade posts that ended at a cluster of larger, burned-off gateposts. Continuation of the excavation indicated that the recorded width of the opening between the gateposts was also in error. In addition, I located two corners of the fort that were off by several feet from the written rec­ ords. The historian was forced to concede that archaeological excavations might be used to correct errors in written records.



Beginning an Academic Career 73

Figure 5.1. Base of the flagpole at Fort Phil Kearny.

Other excavations in historic sites produced results that justified the application of archaeological techniques to historic site interpretations. At Fort Bonneville on the Green River in western Wyoming, the presence of a former stockade was demonstrated by a trench with a solid line of rotted-­ off posts still intact below the surface, and the location of the stockade did not coincide with historical accounts. South Pass City on the Continental Divide in northwest Wyoming was a gold-mining town in the late nineteenth century but deteriorated rapidly after the gold deposits were depleted. Most buildings in the town were abandoned and deteriorated through time until, in the 1970s, restoration was started in an attempt to develop it as a tourist attraction. Locations of building foundations, drainage ditches, and other features were needed to retain an acceptable measure of authenticity for reconstruction purposes. Another historic event took place in South Pass City. Wyoming is credited as being the first state to establish women’s suffrage, and a woman who lived there, Esther Morris, became the first female justice of the peace in the United States. In the 1970s, several prominent Wyoming women advocated bringing a higher level of recognition to this accomplishment. Part of the project was to restore Morris’s original cabin at South Pass City, for

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which there were no photographs to reveal details of size or shape. A small monument designates the location of her cabin, and I was asked to establish its size by locating the foundation. The foundation at the site of the monument was easily exposed, but the dimensions were not what several individuals believed they would be, and my report was not accepted. These projects ended my venture into historic sites archaeology, although I believe that the results brought about better relationships between historians and archaeologists.

Developing a Research Program Serious investigations of bison kill sites were appearing in the 1950s and 1960s. Richard Forbis (1962) investigated deep, stratified deposits at the Old Women’s Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada; Thomas Kehoe (1967) investigated the Boarding School Bison Drive in northern Montana; and Joe Ben Wheat (1972) investigated the Olsen-Chubbuck site in eastern Colorado. All three sites were of different ages, relied on different bison-procurement strategies, and started new approaches to bison studies. However, in all three studies I could detect a lack of familiarity with animals in general and bison in particular. I gradually developed the idea that, because I was familiar with both wild and domestic animals, this might be advantageous toward securing a presently unoccupied niche in Plains archaeology. In the western hunting culture in which I was raised, hunters were divided into two vaguely defined groups, the trophy hunters and the meat hunters. The former were mainly interested in heads and hides to hang on the wall, while the latter were more interested in the quantity and quality of the meat. In all fairness, most meat hunters seldom passed up a ­trophy animal. Northwest Wyoming was one of the well-known areas for trophy hunting because of an abundance of wild game animals including moose, elk, mountain sheep, grizzly bear, and mule deer. Trophy hunting was mostly limited to well-heeled individuals who could afford the amenities of a satisfactory comfort level in the field. This was far above the range of my pocketbook and that of most of the hunters I guided. However, my uncle Theodore (Ted) Frison and I always managed to slip away into the backcountry after our clients were on the way home to get an elk or two to fill the freezer in preparation for the long winter ahead. After I started excavating animal kill sites, my enthusiasm for hunting as an economic process began to shift toward observing their behavioral



Beginning an Academic Career 75

patterns when pursued by hunters and using these observations in an attempt to better understand prehistoric procurement strategies. Wyoming was an ideal location for these kinds of observations, with elk, pronghorns, and deer practically in the backyard and mountain sheep a short day’s drive away. Bison were rapidly gaining in popularity, and two herds of more than 500 head were within a half day’s drive. Pete (Bison Pete) Gardner of Wheatland, Wyoming, owned one of these herds, and he was always willing to give me a call when he was branding the animals or working them in corrals. In addition, he supplied UW with his dead animals, so that eventually we were able to claim the largest comparative Bison bison faunal collection available. Carcasses of most carnivores and scavengers were usually easy to acquire, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGF) helped us with all species of game animals, especially mountain sheep, which were particularly difficult to come by. In addition, we were able to obtain a federal permit to collect roadkill and were thereby able to acquire a large raptor collection. Faunal assemblages from large animal kills nearly always contained carnivore and scavenger remains of both birds and animals, not surprising considering the short time between the death of an animal and the appearance of animals and birds seeking a meal. In this sense, an animal kill may have served a secondary purpose because the hunters only had to wait for their appearance. In addition their remains were usually fragmentary, and most had the appearance of being included in the meat supply. Bear were the largest and most common omnivore regularly found, and it was difficult to separate black bear from grizzlies without adequate comparative collections, which we were lacking. Black bear carcasses were relatively easy to obtain, but grizzly bear remains were not. I contacted Roy Coleman, an outfitter from Cody, Wyoming, who had guided grizzly hunters for several years. The strategy used at that time was to take an old horse to a location where grizzlies were known to frequent, shoot the horse, and cut it open so that the odor would spread and attract a bear to the location where a concealed hunter could shoot it. An experienced backup shooter was present in case the hunter became excited or confused and made a bad shot. A wounded grizzly was dangerous and could rapidly cover the distance between hunter and prey. This was about the time grizzlies were declared an endangered species, but Mr. Coleman said that two years earlier, his last client killed a bear but took only the head and hide and left the remainder of the carcass. He also said that he was going to his

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Figure 5.2. Log structure in the Sunlight Basin in northwest Wyoming that was finally identified as part of a mountain sheep–trapping complex.

hunting camp the next day to check on his horses and offered to take me to the location of the grizzly kill. It was over a 50-mile trip to his camp over rough roads and another 3- to 4-mile horseback ride to the kill site where we collected the bones, which were undisturbed and clean from two years’ exposure. On the return ride we made a short detour so Coleman could show me a structure just inside an isolated grove of lodgepole pines. It was unquestionably of human origin: an estimated 20 feet (6.1 meters) long, 6 feet (1.8 meters) wide, and 5 feet (1.5 meters) high, made of logs stacked one above the other and with no top covering (Figure 5.2). None of the logs demonstrated ax marks, and fallen trees obscured much of the detail. It was in a remote, seldom-visited location; its size and shape ruled out a living structure, and neither of us could conjure up any explanation of its purpose. We returned to Cody, and I was pleased to have acquired the grizzly bones even though skull and feet were missing. The entire venture was a significant step toward acquiring a badly needed comparative faunal collection.



Beginning an Academic Career 77

Bison bison –Procurement Strategies The most visible prehistoric archaeological sites in Wyoming resulted from different kinds of bison-procurement strategies that in many instances left piles of bones mixed with weaponry and butchering tools. There were many variations; they were stampeded over cliffs, driven into natural traps, and herded into corrals. Historically, the main interest in bison bones was to sell them for fertilizer, but by the time I came to UW, Plains archaeologists were beginning to take a closer look at faunal materials and exploring different means of retrieving information about the human hunters involved. This line of thinking began at the Piney Creek site (Frison 1967) and was expanded at the Big Goose Creek bison kill (Frison, Wilson, and Walker 1978). Although J. B. Griffin, chairman of my dissertation committee at UM, had cautioned me that in his opinion, there was little future potential in pursuing bison studies, in 1969 I began excavations at the Glenrock Buffalo Jump (Frison, ed. 1970), the project just approved by NSF. It was a typical bison jump, with long drive lines marked by stone piles beginning at a gathering area over a mile from the jump-off and eventually leading to a 40-foot-high (12.2-meter) perpendicular drop-off (Figure 5.3, top). After exposing a large bone pile at the base of the drop-off and more bones in arroyos beyond the base (Figure 5.3, bottom), I contemplated whether to photograph them and cover them up again or collect and store them for further analysis. The latter option won out because upon close examination I was not convinced that most of the bone breakage resulted from the fall over the bluff and thought that it might have been from dismembering carcasses into manageable units for transferring to a processing area. Several large cobbles among the bones had to come from an outside source and were of the right size to break large bones, and large chipped-stone tools were of the optimum morphology and size for cutting hide and flesh. This opened the door to an analysis of prehistoric butchering techniques with experimen­ tation using primitive tools. It also resulted in attempts to identify causes of bone modification, often leading to heated arguments over ways to identify and separate human, carnivore, and natural bone modifications. Experiments on modern animal bones were initiated in attempts to reproduce what was observed in actual site contexts. Observations on bones modified by carnivores and scavengers in zoos and other contexts became another

Figure 5.3. Glenrock Buffalo Jump (top) and bones in arroyos at the base (bottom).



Beginning an Academic Career 79

part of faunal analysis (see Bonnichsen and Sorg 1989). This did not tell us much about the social implications or animal-procurement strategies involved or other ways to analyze faunal assemblages and separate natural and human-caused animal death assemblages. I discussed my problem with Paul McGrew, the UW ­paleontologist, who suggested that I take a close look at a dissertation by one of his doctoral students based on early Pliocene vertebrate fauna collected in ­Nebraska. The student, Michael Voorhies (1969), utilized tooth eruption schedules to separate the animals into annual age groups and establish population structure. McGrew had no more than a casual interest in modern animals but reminded me that animal body development is systematic and predictable and suggested that we should be able to apply Voorhies’s analysis to the Glenrock Buffalo Jump animals or any situation with large numbers of ani­ mals involved. Fortunately, mandibles with molar teeth in place yield very little usable meat; tongues are the opposite and were highly desired, and their removal was most easily done in concert with removing the m ­ andibles, which were then abandoned, providing a large sample of teeth. Charles Reher, a bright and enthusiastic student with a serious interest in bison kills, and I utilized Voorhies’s analysis and established the time of year and the age and sex of the bison at the Glenrock jump site (Reher 1970). From this time forward, death assemblages from communal animal kills began to provide more and more information on the human groups involved, and the science of taphonomy became a standard part of analyzing death assemblages (see Efremov 1940). In addition, and as a result of my experience with domestic and wild animals along with limited experience with bison, I was able to add animal behavior into prehistoric human bison-­hunting strategies and come up with information that provided more interpretive possibilities. I was sorely in need of comparative Bison sp. skeletal material for laboratory analysis of bison remains from prehistoric kill sites. I first tried to use domestic cattle or Bos sp. skeletal material, but there are too many significant differences between the two species. Teeth proved to be a major problem because of differences in tooth-eruption schedules between Bison and Bos. I exhausted all possible sources that I could think of and finally remembered a ranch near Gillette, Wyoming, that ran a large bison herd. I stopped by one day and made contact with the foreman, Arthur Busskohl, and explained my problem. Somewhat mystified by my story, he informed me that they either buried or burned their dead animals but told me to get

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into his truck, after which we bounced across the hills for about 2 miles and stopped above a cutbank. At the bottom lay the carcass of a mature cow that had wandered away in a blizzard two years earlier. She died and froze solid before the coyotes could tear the carcass apart. The entire skeleton lay under the dried-out, armor-like hide; we tossed that to one side and loaded the bones in his truck. I cleaned them up as well as possible, numbered the bones, loaded them in the car trunk, and headed home. The skeleton was a welcome addition to our faunal collection, but there was a downside. Even though the carcass had lain out for two years, the hide had protected it from the elements, and the bones retained an offensive odor that persisted in spite of several washings and treatments with chemicals. An even greater problem was the odor that permeated my vehicle and seriously limited my family’s social life. In spite of this we at UW considered ourselves fortunate in acquiring a complete bison skeleton as a beginning of a large Bison bison faunal collection. The same ranch saved females for herd replacement and sale to other bison breeders. At this time, most of the two-year-old males were killed and field-dressed out on the open range and then taken to a butcher shop to be cut up and sold for meat. Male bison skulls with horn sheaths attached, skinned and bleached in the sun for a year or more, brought a good price. I was given permission to examine these skulls, which numbered over a hundred. Records of birthing and killing dates were kept by the ranch managers, so I knew the exact age of a large sample of animals. Mandibles were left intact and attached to the skulls, so I was able to correlate tooth eruption with age and strengthen our claims that tooth eruption in bison was indeed systematic, as Paul McGrew had predicted. In addition the bison ranch agreed to let me know when other carcasses were available, and I was soon able to acquire another complete, mature female skeleton along with a yearling calf. I learned of another bison herd of nearly 500 animals in eastern Wyoming, and the owner, Bison Pete Gardner, provided us with additional skeletal material. All of these experiences began to come together and provide the substance for a long-range plan to investigate what this kind of research could tell us about the different aspects of prehistoric bison procurement and utilization on the Northwestern Plains. Elk, deer, and pronghorn skeletal materials were easy to obtain, but this was not the case with mountain sheep. I was lucky enough to make the draw on a sheep-hunting permit and consequently was able to acquire a mature ram skeleton, which I donated to the UW faunal collections. The



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Figure 5.4. Bison bone storage facilities at the University of Wyoming in 1971 (courtesy UW Photo Services).

WGF offered me a ewe and lamb salvaged from road kills; I eagerly accepted the offer, and even though it required a 750-mile round trip from Laramie to Jackson, Wyoming, I believed that it was well worth the effort.

Space Wars With the acquisition of over 1,500 pounds of bison bone from the Glenrock Buffalo Jump and comparative skeletal material from several bison breeders, storage space became a major issue. The dean and others in the administrative ranks could not understand why this kind of material had to be saved or even collected in the first place, but, on the other hand, they were well aware that these bison kill sites were being approved for substantial NSF grants. I was finally allotted a small classroom, which was immediately converted into a makeshift laboratory. As a last resort for storage, I was allowed space beneath the Arts and Sciences building. It had a dirt floor but was dry; however, I soon discovered that it was home to paper-­ consuming bugs. This was before the advent of plastic bags, so I had to find metal shelving to keep the pasteboard boxes and paper sacks off the dirt floor. The bone assemblages from the Glenrock Buffalo Jump, the Wardell Buffalo Trap, and the Casper Bison Kill, excavated in 1969, 1970, and 1971,

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respectively, utilized all the available storage space (Figure 5.4). It was over a decade later before adequate bone storage for our continually expanding faunal collections became a reality.

Maintaining the Four Fields of Anthropology The emphasis so far has been on archaeology, but the other fields in anthropology were not ignored. C. Thomas Brockman was hired in 1967 and took over most of the cultural anthropology courses. Mulloy spent as much time as possible with his Easter Island research and took a reduced teaching load. A physical anthropologist, George Gill, was hired a year or so later, and after another year, Ann Slater in the English Department taught linguistics and, later on, switched to the Anthropology Department. There was a strong push from the administration to initiate a master’s program. This came to pass, and, with what was pretty much a skeleton crew, we presented the world of anthropology with our first M.A. student in 1981. Unfortunately, Bill Mulloy’s health deteriorated, and he passed away in 1978. Audrey Shalinsky was hired in 1980 and assumed responsibility for the department’s cultural anthropology program.

‹6› High Plains and Rocky Mountain Prehistory

The investigation and analysis of the Glenrock Buffalo Jump left no doubt in my mind that bison were the major source of livelihood for human populations throughout Northwestern Plains prehistory. Upon acquiring adequate comparative skeletal material and with the addition of taphonomic analysis, animal behavior, and geological study of past landforms, I felt more confident in investigating bison kill sites. I realized also that I would have to disregard James Griffin’s cautionary advice on bison studies as a means to establish a future career and move ahead with the opportunities present and ready for exploitation.

The Kobold Buffalo Jump Located in south-central Montana, the Kobold site was well known by local artifact collectors in southern Montana and northern Wyoming. The site is a buffalo jump on the Kobold Ranch on Rosebud Creek: George Kobold excavated into the deposits at the base of a 30-foot (9-meter) perpendicular bluff (Figure 6.1, top) with long lines of stone piles leading up to the jump-off. George and his father, Elmer Kobold, agreed to let me investigate the site further, and before classes began in 1968, I rounded up a crew of UW students and WAS members and placed several trenches between those of Kobold and other diggers (see Frison 1970:4). Our trenches revealed three levels of buffalo jumps, and at first I believed that the oldest was of MPA age. However, this was based on a radiocarbon date of about 4,500 rcybp from the Powers-Yonkee site in southern Montana excavated earlier by the WAS (Bentzen 1962). This date is now believed to be about 2,000 years too old, which leaves it and the Yonkee points from the Kobold 83

Figure 6.1. Kobold Buffalo Jump in south-central Montana (top), Yonkee (bottom, a–e) and Pelican Lake (bottom, f–h) projectile points from the Late Plains Archaic levels, and Late Prehistoric points (bottom, i–k) from the top level.

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site (Figure 6.1a–e) in the Late Plains Archaic (LPA) age range. Above this is another LPA level with Pelican Lake–type points (Figure 6.1f–h). The top level is of Late Prehistoric (LP) age and has produced an assemblage of small, side-notched points (Figure 6.1i–k). One trench revealed a bone bed in the deepest bison jump level (Frison 1970:Figure 8a), but most had been removed by earlier digging. At that time in 1968, and before we were knowledgeable enough to apply taphonomic principles to bison bone beds, we counted and identified the bones and covered them up. However, I did save three mandibles, and from their tooth eruption (Frison 1970:Figure 8a), I believe that it is safe to say it was prob­ ably a late fall or early winter kill. Bone preservation in the upper levels was extremely poor, but an unusual occurrence in the top level was the presence of two fragmentary steatite pipes (Frison 1970:Figure 19a–b), which most likely were involved in some sort of ritual activity.

The Ruby Site Bison-Procurement Complex The investigation and analysis of a bison kill about 1,800 years old in the Powder River Basin in eastern Wyoming strengthened the argument for ritual activity and a thorough understanding of bison behavior by prehistoric hunters. Artifact collectors in the south-central Powder River Basin of Wyoming circulated rumors of an isolated location with large quantities of bison bones and arrowheads — ​so many of the latter, in fact, that the spot was referred to as the Pumpkin Buttes arrowhead mine. Two WAS members took me to the site in summer 1968; bison bones littered a talus slope from what proved to be a thick bone bed about 3 meters below the top of an arroyo bank, and below this, bones littered the slope to the bottom, about 8 meters down. Shovel-skimming a small area just below a small remnant of the bone bed produced several large dart points missed by collectors and reinforced naming the site the arrowhead mine. Shovel-skimming also revealed what turned out to be the tops of postholes. This method was continued as soon as the site was accessible the next spring, revealing more postholes; we suddenly realized that we had evidence of a bison corral (Figure 6.2, top, Area 1). Most of the bone bed was gone, but a remnant was beneath 3 meters of mixed alluvial and colluvial deposits. A nearby rancher came to our rescue and loaned us a small end loader to help remove overburden and expose the remnant of the bone bed and still

Figure 6.2. Ruby site bison trap complex (top) and the edge of the bone bed and postholes (bottom).

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more postholes. A puzzling concentration of large dart points further confused the situation, but with still more postholes, we realized that we had a drive lane formed by two parallel lines of posts leading to a corral entrance (Figure 6.2, top, Area 2). The drive lane had a bend in it just before the corral entrance, causing some of the onlookers to comment that those Indians could not build a straight fence, but the ones familiar with bison pointed out that if animals entering the drive lane could see the corral entrance ahead, there was a strong likelihood that they would execute a 180-degree turn and head back to the hills, with little possibility of bringing them back again until they ­settled down. The bend in the drive lane aided in obscuring the corral entrance until the last possible moment, and the dart point concentration mentioned above lay in the bend. The hunters were apparently prodding and likely also inflicting potentially lethal wounds on many animals, further encouraging them into the corral. Once they were inside, hunters on the hillside above the corral level launched dart points into the confused animals. We believed at this point that we had a plausible reconstruction of the bison-killing operation. However, only a remnant of the bison bone bed remained (Figure 6.2, bottom; Figure 6.3, top). The bones discarded by the artifact hunters were of no analytical use, and the lack of usable bones deprived us of enough faunal material for a reliable taphonomic study. However, we were able to retrieve several projectile points from the remnant of the bone bed and from the bend in the drive lane (Figure 6.3, bottom). This was only part of the bison-procurement complex. Removal of more overburden to the east of the corral revealed more postholes and parts of decomposed wooden logs alongside the drive lane but with no connection to it (Figure 6.2, top, Area 3). These postholes formed the o­ utline of a bipointed, football-shaped structure about 49 feet (15 meters) by 16 feet (5 meters). The positions of several decomposed logs indicated that the north half of the structure had been roofed over and the south half probably remained open. Male bison skulls with frontal ends pointing outward had been placed between the posts on the open south end, and each of the four postholes in a line inside the structure contained a long dorsal spine with the vertebral end upward. No evidence of living activities was found in the structure, leading us to believe that it was a ritually related structure used by the shaman in charge of calling the bison into the corral. A consulting geologist, John Albanese, studied the site area and concluded that this bison-procurement complex was constructed in a stream

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Figure 6.3. Remnant of the Ruby site bone bed and postholes for the corral (top) and projectile points from the corral and drive lane (bottom, a–e).

meander during a period of aggrading alluvial deposits. After site abandonment, aggrading stream deposits continued, covering part of the corral and the lower part of the shaman’s structure. Subsequently the regime changed to one of degradation, and the stream formed a deep, nearly straight channel, leaving one side of the corral and the edge of the bison bone bed exposed (Albanese 1971). A meat-processing area is still intact beneath as

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much as a meter of alluvial deposits in a stream meander of a nearby arroyo and could reveal information such as the distribution of meat products after killing the animals. Known as the Ruby Bison Corral (Frison 1971a), the feature revealed not only solid evidence of shamanistic activity but also that a thorough knowledge of bison behavior was applied in prehistoric bison procurement. In addition, it demonstrated beyond any doubt the value of geological analy­sis in understanding site-formation processes. The use of a corral and drive lines with wooden posts added a new dimension to our knowledge of prehistoric bison-procurement strategies other than jumps and arroyo traps. The Ruby site is dated at about 1,800 rcybp and represents bison hunters, first recognized in Canada, known as Besant (Wettlaufer 1955).

The Muddy Creek Bison Kill Complex Another Besant bison-procurement complex is located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of the Ruby site and demonstrates that this cultural group was innovative and well able to adapt to different topographic and other conditions in bison procurement. Muddy Creek is a small live stream in a wide valley that flows eastward through several square kilometers of high-quality grassland, and the procurement complex was placed at the bottom of the steep, 100-meter-high northern slope of the stream valley. A narrow, flat-topped point of land extends southward at right angles to Muddy Creek. The center of the corral, outlined by postholes, lies about 9 feet (3 meters) below the level of the flat point of land. A boulder pavement had been placed at the edge of the flat point of land at the entrance to a chute, estimated to have been 26 feet (8 meters) long, that dumped the animals into the corral. The slope of the chute was enough to prevent the animals from seeing the corral until it was too late to stop forward progress and reverse direction. Its configuration is vaguely reminiscent of the Boarding School Bison Kill site in northern Montana (Kehoe 1967), except in that instance, a steep bank may have been used instead of an artificial chute. The corral was about 43 feet (13 meters) in diameter, and, unlike at the Ruby site, single large posts were used in construction rather than smaller paired posts. The floor of the corral was close to the surface so that most of the skeletal material had rotted away, but collectors had taken several hundred Besant-style points from the corral. Although one might have been present, we could not find evidence of a shaman’s structure.

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However, located on the rim above the site is a doughnut-shaped stone cairn about 42 feet (13 meters) by 50 feet (15 meters) in diameter and rising about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above ground surface. A central 13-foot-by-8-foot (4-meters-by-2.5-meters) oval-shaped depression extends to ground level, although there is evidence of disturbance from earlier artifact hunters. The cairn is constructed of rounded boulders, some up to about 12 inches (30 centimeters) and more in maximum diameter, readily available in the area. An excavation in the central depression produced evidence of juniper ( Juniperus sp.) wood and fragments of human bone. Radiocarbon dates on the wood and charcoal from the corral are nearly identical, just over 1,700 rcybp, and we believe that the cairn may be ritually related to the bison kill (Larson and Longenecker 1979). Tipi ring (stone circle) clusters were located south of the corral on both sides of Muddy Creek (see Reher 1983), and the presence of ­projectile points identical to those from the corral leaves little doubt of a close relationship. As was the situation at the Ruby site, there was only a small sample of bison bone recovered, but tooth eruption of the few mandibles and loose teeth indicated a late fall–early winter procurement season. A radiocarbon date of just over 1,700 rcybp, along with the large dart points, indicates an event during the LPA period. We now had even more evidence of innovative means for prehistoric pedestrian hunters to exploit bison.

The Wardell Buffalo Trap In 1969, Joe Bozovich of Rock Springs, Wyoming, took me to a large bison kill along the Green River in western Wyoming. The site looked p­ romising, so I applied for and was approved for another NSF grant to investigate the site in 1970. A bison bone level up to 3 feet (1 meter) in depth (Frison 1973a:23) and postholes, some with parts of several posts intact, were present, but an arroyo through the site had created enough disturbance to make a procurement strategy conjectural. However, I stuck my neck out and ventured the opinion that the animals would have been thirsty, would have headed for the river, and after getting their fill, could more easily be hazed into the corral. Others thought the opposite; the thirsty animals were channeled into the head of the arroyo and then driven downhill into the coral. Whatever the answer, the bison remains were adequate for a population study, which indicated that the kill probably occurred in late summer or early fall (Reher 1973). The site produced a large assemblage of projectile

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points smaller in size and later in time than those from the Ruby site and similar to those of the Avonlea Complex first recognized in Canada (Kehoe and McCorquodale 1961). Badgers digging for prairie dogs on a flat area near the kill site brought up bones, stone artifacts, and potsherds. Radiocarbon dates between 1,100 and 1,500 rcybp and small, side-notched projectile points from both kill and processing area (Frison 1973a:27–29, 62–63) indicated an LP time period age for the site. Some sherds could be refit, and this produced evidence of a pointed-bottom vessel (Frison 1973a:69). Sticking my neck out even further, I suggested that this could be an Athabascan site. Another likely Avonlea candidate is the Woodard site in the southwestern Wind River Basin (Frison 1988:164), which produced sherds from a single vessel that “have good potential for ancestral Navajo or Western Athabascan pottery” (Reed 2003:74). In addition, small samples of ceramics from other southwestern Wyoming sites could be Athabascan (Reed 2003) and possible evidence of their move to the Southwest.

The Vore Site Bison Trap In 1970, surveys for the last stretch of Interstate 90 across northeast Wyoming were completed. The area from Sundance, Wyoming, to the South Dakota border contained numerous sinkholes or karsts, and one of these was about 115 feet (35 meters) in diameter at the surface and 82 feet (25 meters) in diameter at the flat bottom, about 46 feet (14 meters) below the surface. Interstate 90 was routed directly over the karst, and a man, whose name I failed to record, stopped by my office one day and said that he had worked on a drilling rig testing the deposits at the bottom of the karst. He claimed that immediately below about 4 feet (1.2 meters) of slope wash deposits the drill brought up pieces of bone down to a depth of about 15 feet (4.5 meters). It was definitely something to investigate further, so I started a test hole at the bottom of the karst where the drilling rig had been placed. My informant’s description proved correct: Just over 4 feet below was tightly compacted bone; one was a complete bison skull with a hole chopped through the frontal bone to expose the brain case. Further work produced bow-and-arrow-size arrowpoints and a chipped-stone butchering tool. Deepening the test another 3 feet revealed more of the same. The karst (Figure 6.4) was evidently a natural feature into which bison were driven and killed at some time in the past. It had the potential of being a

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Figure 6.4. Karst or sinkhole used for a bison trap at the Vore site in northeast Wyoming.

large, significant archaeological site and needed protection until it could be further investigated. The Wyoming Highway Department was less than enthusiastic at the prospect of having to reroute Interstate 90, and one landowner was not pleased at having the highway moved closer to his home. However, local interest was high, and site destruction was averted. I applied for and was awarded a two-year NSF research grant to excavate the site and analyze the results. Charles Reher was my assistant for the first year and directed most of the operation the second year. Our early assessment of the site proved to be conservative. During the two seasons of site work, excavation units were sunk through 17 feet (5.2 meters) of deposits containing discrete levels of different thickness of bison bone separated by sterile deposits (Figure 6.5). Slope wash deposits were continually aggrading, and the lowest five site components revealed 141 years of consecutively accumulated annual varve deposits. Beginning about ad 1540–1550, this indicates a kill about every 25 years. All told there could easily have been more than 20,000 bison killed during the entire time the site was used. Some lines of stone piles representing drive lines remain, but

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Figure 6.5. Bison bones at the Vore site bison trap.

most were removed down through the years by farming and other surface disturbance. However, the hunters were probably bringing in animals from all directions. The results of the investigation of the Vore Buffalo Jump, named after the original landowner, expanded our understanding of LP bison procurement, provided large samples of faunal materials for taphonomic analysis, and allowed an in-depth study of prehistoric butchering and processing techniques. The site also provided a large assemblage of diagnostic stone

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artifacts (Reher and Frison 1980). Reher was able to use the site data for his doctoral work at the University of New Mexico. The site is protected and should provide research projects for students well into the future. It is also gaining widespread interest as a travel destination.

Bison Faunal Studies In Chapter 1, I brought up the subject of the severe drought years of the 1930s and their effects on many cattle ranchers in the area where I was raised. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration purchased many animals that were literally starving to death and killed and buried them in pits and trenches (see Petrie 1934/1935). Carcasses in some of these locations were exposed in later years by floods and other causes. Two of these came to light during my first years of investigating bison kill sites. I was still in an early stage of learning the subtle differences between certain Bison and Bos skeletal elements when the first of the two came to light. It has all the characteristics one would expect in a bison kill. I spent most of a day collecting bones that had washed down an arroyo because of a recent flood, and noticing what appeared to be part of an articulated carcass still in place, I went back the next day prepared to apply a plaster cast. As I exposed the skull, I noticed a small round hole between the eyes and a .30-caliber bullet that fell out of the brain case. The circumstances of the situation were immediately resolved. The other location was similar to the first, but the informants were well aware of the carcasses’ identity and decided that it could be used to embarrass the new state archaeologist. However, by this time I was able to confirm the identity of several bones as Bos and not Bison, and my reputation was salvaged. In a completely different vein was another episode that dealt with ani­ mal species identification using teeth. During the late eighteenth century, the big cattlemen in eastern Wyoming attempted to drive out what they claimed to be rustlers and other undesirables. The entire effort is a blot on Wyoming history, and its culmination was the infamous 1892 range war or invasion of Johnson County, Wyoming (see Davis 2010). One of the events of the conflict was the assassination of John A. Tisdale along with his team of horses in December 1891 several miles south of the town of Buffalo, Wyoming. I stopped by the recently established Buffalo Museum in 1965 while excavating at the Piney Creek bison kill site and noticed a prominent display

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labeled as a mandible from one of Tisdale’s horses. A closer look confirmed that it was a domestic cow mandible, a statement that greatly perplexed the museum curator, who asked me if there was a difference between the two. My practice in identifying animal teeth was justified, and the display was removed the same day.

Butchering Bison and Other Large Animals When the pursuit is ended and the animal lies dead on the ground, the hunter’s attitude changes. He may have achieved his main objective, but now comes the difficult but equally important part. Proper treatment is paramount to extracting the maximum in amount and quality of products from the dead animal. In the sparsely settled ranching country in which I was raised, nearly every family raised, killed, and butchered their animals for household consumption. This required acquiring and maintaining a special set of tools. Butchering an animal the size of a domestic cow or bison is hard work, and not having properly maintained tools is frustrating and adds to the workload. Analyses of wear patterns on stone tools to determine their past use became a focus of study in archaeology (see Frison 1979). It is a valid approach, but I strongly believed that an experimental approach could add much more. My decision to continue along these lines was reinforced because I could not detect convincing evidence that any of my colleagues were familiar enough with the practical aspects of the problem. From past experience, I was well aware that it was easier to butcher a freshly killed animal than one dead long enough for rigor mortis to occur and even more difficult if the weather was cold enough to allow parts of the animal to freeze. Consequently, I was alert for the opportunity to experi­ ment with a freshly killed bison using stone tools under conditions one would expect outside of a commercial processing plant. The first opportunity came about unexpectedly; Adrien Hannus, an anthropology student in Rapid City, South Dakota, was conducting a field school in survival techniques in the South Dakota Black Hills in 1974 and managed to convince the owner of a bison herd east of Rapid City to allow an archer to attempt to kill a young bull. Hannus contacted me to inquire if I was interested in helping to skin and strip the meat from the carcass. I was excavating at the MLC site at the time, so my student George Zeimens and I drove most of the night to the location, about 300 miles away. The archer had a new style of bow manufactured with the latest plastic

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materials, fitted with pulleys and cables, and totally different from the yew wood bow mentioned earlier and used by Robert Cole to kill a bison bull in 1939. The archer used one shaft, which went through the animal and stuck in the ground several feet beyond. It required several minutes for the shot to take effect, but internal bleeding finally killed the animal. It was an impressive display of the killing power of a bow and arrow. A good flint knapper was included in the event, and he manufactured several tools based on our ideas at that time of what constituted reliable chipped-stone skinning and meat-cutting and -stripping tools. Admittedly, we were still in the novice stage of bison butchering with stone tools at the time, and our ideas were based strongly on tools recovered from bison kill sites. The butchering process was progressing slowly, and we suddenly realized that most of the tools being manufactured for us were replicas of ones worn out and discarded by the butchers in known prehistoric kill sites. Using better-designed tools, we managed to make a more respectable finish to the project. It was a rather sloppy job of butchering, but it was a valuable learning experience. Another bison-butchering opportunity came about two years later. By this time I had participated in more butchering experiments and had a better tool kit. A Wyoming State park near Thermopolis, Wyoming, maintained a small bison herd under essentially open-range conditions. It was rumored that the park administrators intended to butcher one of the ani­mals for a convention banquet. I contacted the park manager, who was under­ standably skeptical of my request to butcher the animal with stone tools. He finally consented, but only if a meat inspector was present to guarantee sanitary conditions. I agreed to the conditions and prepared three sets of butchering tools made from selected local cherts and quartzite. It was an ideal situation; the animals were on the open range with no supplemental feeding. The animal chosen was a mature female that had lost her calf during the previous summer and was in slightly better condition than the other females with calves. The animal was killed and placed on a large canvas, although there were several inches of fresh snow on the ground that would have prevented dirt from contaminating the meat. Aided again by George Zeimens, who by now was a graduate student, I skinned and stripped the flesh from one side of the animal. After flipping the animal over I would have gladly switched to a metal knife. However, a sizable crowd had assembled, cameras were clicking, and to save face, I knew we had to complete the effort with our stone tools.

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When the animal was completely butchered, the meat inspector conceded that it was as clean a job as could have been accomplished with conventional tools. He even slipped me a choice piece of loin that proved to be of quality equal to beef. The generally accepted weight of meat from a mature female bison is around 400 pounds (182 kilograms [White 1953a]). Our animal yielded 368 pounds, and had it been killed earlier in the winter, the yield would have been closer to the former amount. In retrospect, we learned many lessons about the advantages and disadvantages of stone tools. One thing came through loud and clear; there is a definite need for purposefully dulling the part of a stone tool that comes into contact with the hand. Otherwise your hand takes the same punishment as the animal carcass.

Paleoindian Bison antiquus and Bison occidentalis Procurement The circumstances involved in the disappearance of the late Pleistocene megafauna was becoming a hot topic and resulted in contentious debates among specialists in several disciplines. Paul Martin from the University of Arizona caused quite a stir with his overkill idea when he proposed that human hunters entering North America encountered these animals and launched into indiscriminate killing (Martin 1967). It was still relatively early in my academic career that I was invited, along with several others, to present a paper at a session on this subject at an SAA annual meeting. I was strongly influenced by Marshall Sahlins, one of my professors in graduate school; I liked his ideas on primitive economics (see Sahlins 1972) and disagreed with Martin because I believed that there was adequate ethnological evidence that human hunters at lower levels of social organization stopped killing more animals when their immediate economic goals were satisfied and there was no profit motive incentive to continue. I argued also that constraints on killing animals resulted from religious beliefs that demanded proper treatment of animal spirits or the animals would no longer be available to the human hunters. I am convinced that Martin did not seriously consider my argument, but we were both individuals who could disagree and remain friends. Consequently we enjoyed many lively discussions in following years. At about this same time, I became involved in several Paleoindian bison kill sites that came to light in Wyoming that, to me at least, provided adequate evidence to lessen much of the credence for the overkill idea.

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Wyoming contains extensive deposits of uranium, and after the postWWII excitement in the exploitation of small, easily mined sources mentioned earlier, mining of uranium deposits was limited to situations that could only be profitably exploited by large mining operations. One location was in the Shirley Basin of central Wyoming, where mine tailings removed by massive machinery over several years formed hills that noticeably altered some of the original topography. Partial skeletal remains of six bison were exposed in the early stages of removing overburden in one area along a small stream, and from their size, they were recognized as an extinct s­ pecies by a Carter/Kerr-McGee mining engineer (Fletcher 1970). The miners saved some of the bones, which included an exceptionally well-preserved male Bison antiquus skull and a female skull (Figure 6.6). Flint chips and hide scrapers were allegedly found in the same deposits as the bison bones, but the belief at the time was that the bison probably predated the human presence in North America and the stone materials had been introduced from younger overlying deposits. My graduate student Michael Wilson and I were able to acquire the skeletal materials for our faunal collections, but there was no record of the alleged artifacts. It is unfortunate that we were unable to investigate the site before it was destroyed by uranium-mining operations.

The Smithsonian Institution and the Agate Basin Bison Kill Site Dennis Stanford was a Rawlins, Wyoming, high school student when he wandered into a remote area southwest of that town where temporary UW professor George Agogino and Harvard University graduate students Cynthia and Henry Irwin were excavating in a mammoth site, and from that moment, Stanford was completely hooked on Paleoindian sites and excavations. Although a generation separated us, we both wound up at UW as undergraduate students at the same time. He went to the University of New Mexico for graduate study the same time I was at UM, but we maintained close contact. He was hired as a Paleoindian archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution (SI) a short time after I returned to UW, and we both understandably had interests in Wyoming archaeology. Frank H. H. Roberts, with William Bass as his site foreman, spent part of the summer of 1962 at the AB site, but Robert’s health was failing, and the venture did not produce the hoped-for results. In addition, their test excavations at several locations alerted artifact hunters to the same spots. I first visited the site in 1971, and there was evidence of serious looting

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Figure 6.6. Male (a) and female (b) Bison antiquus skulls from a site in the Shirley Basin uranium-mining area in central Wyoming (photo by Robert Swaim).

then, not surprising considering the distinctive lanceolate points that had been recovered there (Figure 6.7). The site is partly on state of Wyoming land and partly on private land, and both landowners allowed testing in 1972. The results indicated two locations with undisturbed deposits, and in 1975 we exposed a larger undisturbed area with part of a bone bed with

Figure 6.7. (a–e) Agate Basin–type projectile points from the Agate Basin site: (a) base, two midsection pieces, and impact flake recovered in 1979; (b) part of a proximal end recovered by William Spencer and distal end recovered by R. Frison and F. H. H. Roberts in 1942; (c) distal end recovered by R. Frison and F. H. H. Roberts in 1942 and proximal end recovered by the author in 1975 (photo by Danny Walker).

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Figure 6.8. Bison bones from the Agate Basin component at the Agate Basin site.

an assemblage of stone projectile points and tools. Within the bone bed were two concentrations of badly deteriorated but identifiable articulated bison carcass units (Figure 6.8). Away from the pile were disarticulated and scattered bones, many with evidence of deliberate breakage (see also Frison and Stanford 1982:Figure 2.44). Taphonomic study indicated that the animals were killed during cold weather; from this we proposed that these bison carcass units were piled up, frozen, and the hunting group camped nearby and extracted carcass parts as needed. I believe that the remaining articulated bison carcass units represent a surplus that was not needed and spoiled upon the approach of warm weather and the availability of other food sources (see Frison 1982a). I informed Stanford at the SI of these developments, and because we both had interest in the site, we decided to explore ways to continue the investigations. Stanford suggested that I apply for a one-year fellowship at the Smithsonian for 1980 so that we could work together on the analy­ sis of the AB site materials. This was approved, and NSF gave us enough money to continue fieldwork in summer 1979. This was especially rewarding because we exposed the remainder of the AB bison bone bed in what we designated Area 2, and separated by about 2 feet (60 centimeters) of s­ terile deposits, below this was an exceptionally productive Folsom bone bed and

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habitation area. William Bass was at the University of Tennessee and supplied us with a copy of his 1962 fieldwork notes, and with these, along with Roberts’s materials already at the SI, we believed that we now had sufficient data to analyze and to publish a report on the AB site. The year at the Smithsonian was productive, and we were able to submit a completed manuscript to Academic Press in 1981 (see Frison and Stanford, eds. 1982). Folsom evidence at the AB site is discussed in Chapter 7. To me, the AB site provides one of the clearest examples known of Paleoindian bison procurement, and this claim is supported by the presence of intact Folsom-, Agate Basin–, and Hell Gap–age bone beds. However, I have to add the caveat that this claim loses much of its impact if the reader is not familiar enough with bison behavior to understand how the procurement system might have functioned. On the other hand, there are many landforms in the area at the present time that can be used to demonstrate bison trapping. Moss Agate Creek and its environs, in which the site is located, is ideal bison habitat. Good grass cover is present on the higher surfaces, and the low-gradient creek bottom provides water and tall grasses. There is no presently known basis for not assuming that similar and ­possibly more favorable conditions existed in Paleoindian times. The site location is at the head of an arroyo system that, through headward erosion, has continually advanced into a higher stable land surface (Figure 6.9), and since Paleoindian times, the arroyo system has advanced some distance onto this higher surface. The head of the arroyo formed a steep slope that, along with steep arroyo banks, impeded the forward progress of the animals and confused them long enough to allow the hunters to kill some or all of them. This is undoubtedly an oversimplification because in dealing with wild animals, too many things could have gone awry to expect all efforts to end in success. For example, an event as common as a jackrabbit suddenly jumping out of its daytime hiding place in front of a herd could disrupt the entire process. There were two and possibly three HG levels recorded at the western end of the AB site during the UW excavations (Frison 1982b). One of these had been found earlier during the excavation of the Brewster site (Agogino and Frankforter 1960), which later proved to be part of the AB site complex. Part of an intact HG bone bed was recovered above a Folsom level (Frison 1982b:136–137) with HG diagnostics. However, the Casper HG site provided larger and better faunal and artifact assemblages.

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Figure 6.9. Topography of the Moss Agate arroyo area looking west: Agate Basin site (bottom arrow); surface of the rim at the head of Moss Agate arroyo (top arrow).

The Casper, Wyoming, Hell Gap–Age Bison Kill Site Archaeological evidence indicates that the North Platte River was an avenue for movements of prehistoric human groups between the Plains and the Wyoming Basin. The river originates in northern Colorado, flows north into Wyoming, gradually changes direction, and flows southeasterly into Nebraska. At its most northerly point at the city of Casper, Wyoming, the area immediately north of the river is the location of a large sand dune field. In the early 1970s, industrial expansion began to move into this sand dune area. In the spring of 1971, land-leveling operations removed about 30 feet of sand, fortunately stopping just above a bison bone bed. Two avocational archaeologists, Rodney Laird and David Egolf, noticed the exposed area and recovered several bison bones and parts of several projectile points. The annual meeting of the WAS was in Casper at the same time. I had just left the meeting and returned home when one member called and suggested that I investigate the location as soon as possible before word spread and the site was overrun by collectors. I returned the next day with a hastily assembled crew of students. The sand was easily removed from around several individual bones and articulated skeletal units that were directly associated

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Figure 6.10. Present-day parabolic sand dune in the Casper site area.

with projectile points diagnostic of the 10,000-year-old Hell Gap Cultural Complex. Unable to arrive at a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon, the consulting geologist, John Albanese, and several of his associates studied the site area and determined that the bone bed lay in the elongated trough of a parabolic sand dune. Upon completion of our 1971 investigations, we concluded that the animals were driven into the open windward end of a parabolic sand dune (Figure 6.10) and the steep sides and lee end of the dune impeded their progress enough that they could be killed with large dart points (Figure 6.11). Strong support for this argument came from several projectile points that broke on impact, leaving their bases at the windward end of the dune, which we conjoined to the distal ends recovered in carcasses toward the lee end. I believe that they were killed with atlatls and darts, although throwing and thrusting spears may have also been used. Bone preservation was exceptional and difficult to explain, especially in dry windblown sand deposits. However, further study of the bone bed determined that it lay on an impervious level of cemented river cobbles, and after windblown sand covered it, a shallow pond formed over it. Carbonates in the water sealed and helped preserve the bone bed. Many butchered carcass units remained in their original position after they were butchered (Figure 6.12) and with bone breakage and cut marks perfectly preserved.

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Figure 6.11. (a–c) Hell Gap–type projectile points from the Casper site (drawing by Connie Robinson).

Some carnivore and scavenger damage could be observed on bones, along with deliberate breakage using large cobbles to separate carcasses into manageable units for transport. However, the bone bed was covered with sand soon after the animals were killed, which was largely responsible for the good bone preservation. A small part of the bone bed had been removed by a pipeline several years earlier, but there was still a minimal number of about 80 animals,

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Figure 6.12. Bison antiquus skeletal units (top) and bison skulls and pelvic units (bottom) at the Casper site: (a) female; (b) male; (c) calf.

which included a nearly full range of individuals of both sexes from fetus to extreme old age. Up to this time, it is the most complete extant assemblage of Bison antiquus skeletal remains from a human bison kill site available for comparative purposes. It was an ideal situation for taphonomic study, which left no doubt that it was a catastrophic kill event occurring in late fall or early winter (Reher 1974). Once again, the innovative abilities of prehistoric bison hunters were expanded into a different and unexpected strategy of extinct bison procurement in a special landform. It further confirmed the need of geological expertise and the value of establishing relationships with the avocationals.

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Dates on bone and charcoal placed the event at about 10,000 rcybp, correlating well with information derived earlier on the Hell Gap Cultural Complex from the HG site in southeast Wyoming (Irwin-Williams et al. 1973). This and another assemblage of extinct bison species bones attracted Michael Wilson, an exceptional student from Canada, into our new M.A. program in anthropology. He was instrumental in helping me assemble and edit a book on the Casper site published by Academic Press (Frison 1974). I strongly believe that Wilson’s unpublished master’s thesis at UW (1975) is one of the more reliable sources of information on Bison sp. evolution in North America.

The Carter/Kerr-McGee Bison Kill and Camp Site At the present time, the Powder River Basin, located in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana, is the largest soft-coal-strip-mining area in the lower 48 states. Strip mines required cultural resource surveys ahead of massive earth disturbances, and one of the earliest of the surveys revealed a Cody Complex bison bone bed almost within the city limits of Gillette, Wyoming. The site is split by two mining company leases; hence the name, Carter/Kerr-McGee (CKM). Depressions caused by land subsidence from coal veins believed to have burned out in late Pliocene and/or early Pleistocene times have left shallow, intermittent ponds and shallow lakes up to several acres in size. The CKM site lies on a slope near the head of an arroyo about 100 feet (30 meters) higher than the bottom of a depression that contains a shallow lake. The arroyo drains into the depression and formed a pathway for bison moving up the arroyo and into an area favorable for restraining and killing the animals. The Cody–Alberta bone bed was almost exposed at the surface, resulting in poor bone preservation. In addition, part of it had been destroyed by artifact hunters. What remained contained parts of nearly 50 animals, based on the astragali count. Tooth eruption schedules indicate that they were probably killed between early December and mid-January. No charcoal was recovered, and bone dates around 6,950 rcybp appear too recent since both Eden and Scottsbluff projectile point types were in the bone bed. Although several articulated units were present, it is questionable whether or not it was the actual kill area, but one must have been close by. Stratigraphically below the Cody and Alberta level, apparently undisturbed, was a level with scatted bone fragments along with HG and AB diagnostics. Beneath another sterile interval was a level with Folsom

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diagnostics and a fire hearth with charcoal producing a 10,400 ± 600 rcybp date. Present also were scattered bone fragments and two possible bison long-bone tools. I was well aware that the ±600 date was not acceptable, and in November 2013 I received two bone dates of 10,600 ± 25 rcybp and 10,520 ± 25 rcybp on bone tools from the Folsom level. Below this was the remnant of a level with what we believe is a Clovis point along with a camel metatarsal and several unidentifiable bone fragments. We suspect but can only speculate that the three lowest cultural levels were associated with actual animal kills. It is difficult to justify their presence in this location for any other reason. We believe also that originally these Paleoindian cultural levels filled the entire upper part of the arroyo. We will probably never know the answer because all of these missing parts of the Paleoindian cultural components were removed by arroyo downcutting. I published a short article on the site (Frison 1984a). However, the Cody Complex bone bed is only partially analyzed, but we have complete geological and soils reports and hope to achieve a more complete site publication in the not-too-distant future.

The Horner Paleoindian Bison Kill Site Mentioned earlier, the Horner site in northwest Wyoming was investigated in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Smithsonian Institution. Waldo Wedel of the Smithsonian had most of the artifact assemblage and had begun an analysis, and another small part of the assemblage was with Glen Jepsen, a paleontologist at Princeton University who, in 1953, authored two short articles on the site, one in Princeton Alumni Weekly ( Jepsen 1953a) and another in Southwestern Lore ( Jepsen 1953b). Then Jepsen ceased investigation of the Horner site but continued to bring paleontology students annually to his Eocene fossil location several miles northeast of the site. One positive result of the first Horner site investigations was H. M. Wormington’s successful effort to jettison the term Yuma, which had become a catchall for unfluted Paleoindian projectile points, and establish the Cody Complex, which included Eden and Scottsbluff point types. On the negative side, a feature article in the 1949 Denver Post’s Rocky Mountain Empire Magazine depicted the Horner site hunter as something out of a definitely subhuman category spearing a small modern Bison bison (Figure 6.13). It portrays one of many artists’ erroneous conceptions of prehistoric hunters and hunting.

Figure 6.13. Artist’s unrealistic drawing of the events at the Horner site (from Frison and Todd 1987).

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Barton (Bart) Rea was one of Jepsen’s former students who became a consulting geologist in Casper and was also an active member of the WAS. Rea contacted Jepsen after I became established at UW in the early 1970s and convinced him to contact me and attempt to arrive at some strategy for the analysis and publication of the Horner site excavations. We arranged a meeting at Cody, Wyoming, and obtained permission from the landowner, Mrs. Pearl Horner (see Figure 3.1), to visit the site. Jepsen had left part of the bone bed intact for further investigation, and although Mrs. Horner tried to keep people away, the desire for the truly outstanding artifacts known to have been recovered there was too much of an attraction to collectors, and the remaining part of the bone bed was long gone. Jepsen was amenable to my working with the site materials under the conditions that he approve my work and write the final conclusions. I could not accept these conditions, and there were no further developments concerning the Horner site until Jepsen passed away and Princeton paleontologist Donald Baird contacted me and said that I could have the Horner site materials at Princeton if I would pick them up. I quickly followed up on this offer, and Donald Baird helped me remove all Horner site materials from Jepsen’s office and laboratory. Included among these were the three projectile points pictured on the cover of the May 8, 1955, Princeton Alumni Weekly (Figure 3.2) and three others (Bradley and Frison 1987:Figure 6.10a, d, Figure 6.17a). Jepsen had set up a small display in an unsecured space that consisted of several skeletal elements along with one of the better projectile points, which should have been kept in a secure area. Not surprisingly, the projectile point was and still is missing. Fortunately, another of Jepsen’s students, Robert Witter (see Figure 3.1), mapped and recorded features and most of the Princeton/Smithsonian bone bed. Witter retained this body of data, along with site records and correspondence between Jepsen and the University of Pennsylvania. Lacking time and resources, further work either at the Horner site or on the Princeton materials was put on hold. While at the SI in 1980, I initiated several discussions with Waldo Wedel and had the impression that he might be persuaded to let me work with his Horner site materials. Dennis Stanford sided with me, and together we convinced him to let me move his entire collection of Horner site materials to UW for analysis. I am quite certain that Wedel had some misgivings, but he did want to see a final report on the Horner site. In the meantime, Pearl Horner had passed away, and the next move was to convince the new landowner, Merle Dutton, to allow site testing

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and determine if any of the original site deposits might still be intact. Mr. Dutton was very cooperative, but the results were almost entirely negative. However, I was curious about the area to the west and south of the original excavations. A south trench proved unproductive, but one to the west revealed the edge of a bison bone bed resting on the cobble terrace with no apparent connection to the original one and overlain by well over a meter of alluvial deposits. It was pure serendipity: a major Paleoindian bison kill stumbled upon with no research plan. The excavated part of the new Horner site bone bed contained remains of about 70 Bison antiquus and several projectile points and tools. At first, the bone bed resembled a pile of unarticulated bones (Figure 6.14, top), but upon the removal of several individual bones, partially articulated skeletons appeared (Figure 6.14, bottom), providing a strong argument that this was an actual kill area. Because the area was lacking any apparent natural feature to form a trap, the possibility of a corral was discussed. However, the cobble surface, tightly cemented with high-carbonate sediments, ruled out postholes, which led to the suggestion of a buck fence. The abrupt edge of one side of the bone bed suggested some sort of restraint but nothing to offer a clue to what kind. The problem still lacks a satisfactory resolution. Radiocarbon dates that can be considered acceptable from the ­Princeton/​ Smithsonian investigations were just under 9,000 years ago, while those from the UW investigations were about 1,000 years earlier. The projectile point assemblage from the former is similar to that from the latter, but Bruce Bradley was able to detect differences in flaking technology in the UW assemblage, suggesting that different hunting groups might have been present at different times in the area during Late Paleoindian times. By applying the same criteria to the Princeton/Smithsonian projectile point assemblage, it was easily separated into the two groups, suggesting that the earlier investigators were unaware that they were dealing with a mixed assemblage. Together, all of these data provided a new interpretation of the Horner site and the Cody Cultural Complex. Jepsen concluded that at the time of the Horner site bison kill, the level of the Shoshone River was at the same level as the site, which is about 90 feet above its present level. However, a study of the Shoshone River terraces by John Albanese (1987) during the UW investigations concluded that the river was at or close to its present level at the time of the bison kills. This issue is still not entirely resolved and invites further study of the Shoshone River terraces. Part of the recent bone bed is intact and protected by more than 2 meters of overburden, should further research be proposed in the

Figure 6.14. Bone bed exposed (top) and after removal of single bones (bottom) during the University of Wyoming 1977–1978 excavations at the Horner site.

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future. I turned all of the correspondence contained in Robert ­W itter’s records over to Waldo Wedel, who synthesized these and other data into a comprehensive history of the Princeton/University of Pennsylvania/­ Smithsonian Horner site investigations (Wedel 1987). Academic Press published an edited volume on the Horner site and several other sites relevant to the Cody Cultural Complex (Frison and Todd 1987).

The Finley Paleoindian Site In 1958, Harold Cook, a paleontologist from Agate, Nebraska, and his wife stopped by the ranch seeking directions to a nearby fossil location. I invited them in for coffee and a look at my artifact collection. Cook immediately spotted an Eden-type projectile point, and this led to the story of his involvement with O. W. Finley and their discovery of artifacts in situ at what became known as the Finley site. Cook was instrumental in getting the University of Pennsylvania Museum to investigate the site. The start of Paleoindian site investigations in Wyoming began in 1940 and 1941 with the University of Pennsylvania at the Finley site, about 6.4 kilometers east of the small town of Eden in western Wyoming (Howard et al. 1941). At that time, the projectile points from the site were regarded as “Yuma,” but they later became part of the Cody Cultural Complex and were formally given the name Eden. The faunal materials were collected by the University of Nebraska and consisted of a strange assortment of bison bones including mostly phalanges, distal ends of metapodials, astragali, ­patellae, and a single complete right metacarpus (Schultz and Frankforter 1951). Most numerous were 190 left second phalanges, which would represent 48 animals. In 1971, I visited the original site and noticed several bison phalanges on the surface exposed by collectors. It appeared that someone had actually used a plow to expose the subsurface deposits. About 660 feet (203 meters) north of the original excavation area and extending into a sand dune, large bones were being exposed by recent wind activity, and for a short time I believed that we might have a bone bed associated with the Finley site. However, my elation was short-lived: It was a bone bed most likely connected to the original Finley site, but it soon became clear that the bones had been removed from their original location. In addition many demonstrated recent damage, and some, including a pelvis and two scapulae, had

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Figure 6.15. Male Bison antiquus skull from the Finley site (photo by Danny Walker).

puncture marks, probably from a probe. Someone had done a professional job of looting and even tried to cover up the evidence. Even though it was a discouraging situation, we decided to recover the bones and, in doing so, found three projectile point fragments of the same type as those from the original site, further suggesting a close association. We were able to recover 1,306 skeletal elements of bison, which, aided by evidence from other bison kill sites, allowed several different kinds of analy­ses. Left metacarpals suggested a minimum number of individuals (MNI) of 59 animals (Haspel and Frison 1987). Enough mandibles and teeth were found to determine that the animals were killed in late fall or early winter (Todd and Hofman 1987), representing either a kill of several animals at one time or more than one kill at the same time of year. Radiocarbon dates on bone were around 9,100 rcybp, and more recent bone dates confirm that our early dates were essentially correct and fit well with other Cody Complex dates. A recent and more complete reanalysis of the bone assemblage claims a minimum of 82 animals, with 28 percent mature males and 62 percent cows and calves (Hill 2008). One partial but badly damaged bison skull is complete enough to allow several measurements, which indicate that it can be classified as a large male Bison antiquus (Wilson 1975:167–170). Recently several bison horn core fragments were refit to allow reconstruction of one nearly complete horn core for this same specimen (Figure 6.15). Provided the opposite horn core was about the same size, we can now give an estimate of its total horn core width at about 98 millimeters. This fits well with the measurements of the male bison from the Casper site.

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The earlier thinking was that the animals were killed in a boggy area a short distance to the west of the original Finley site. However, the feature in question occasionally traps a sick or crippled domestic cow but would not offer an impediment to healthy cattle or bison. I am strongly convinced that the bone bed we recovered was the kill area for the Finley site and that it was some form of a sand dune trap. Fred Finley owns a ranch on the East Fork of the Wind River in the area I was investigating mountain sheep traps. After making his acquaintance, I learned that he had 15 of the Finley site artifacts found by his father and Harold Cook. He agreed to loan them to me long enough to allow Peter Bostrom at Troy, Illinois, to make casts. Consequently, we have accurate reproductions of part of the Finley site artifact assemblage and someday hope to acquire the originals.

The Mill Iron Paleoindian Bison Kill The Hell Gap site investigations by Harvard University were terminated in 1966. The final days of their work produced a cultural level stratigraphically below a Folsom level. Because it was below Folsom, the Irwins first thought that it was Clovis. However, after more careful analysis, they decided that it was not Clovis and named it the Goshen Cultural Complex, after the county in Wyoming in which the HG site is located. No supporting evidence for Goshen was forthcoming until 1979, when an archaeological survey of an isolated block of BLM land in Carter County, Montana, close to the southwest corner of North Dakota and the northwest corner of South Dakota produced projectile points and tools similar to those from the very limited sample of Goshen materials from the HG site in southern Wyoming. These items were recovered on the slope of a butte (Figure 6.16, top) and were subsequently shown at several professional meetings and generated enough interest that the BLM invited me to look at the area in 1983. I believed that the site had sufficient integrity to justify further investigation, and after I expressed interest in investigating it, Burton Williams and ­Gerald Clark of the Montana BLM agreed to support a test excavation in 1984. The results were positive enough to warrant an expanded excavation the next year. The 1986 investigation produced a modest assemblage of lithics and bone along with radiocarbon dates in the 10,800–11,300 rcybp range. There was concern over radiocarbon dating because the site deposits

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Figure 6.16. Butte-top location of the Mill Iron site in Montana (top) and projectile points from the bone bed (bottom, a, d) and camp area (bottom, b–c) (bottom drawing by Connie Robinson).

overlay the Fort Union Formation, which contained extensive coal deposits. At this time we questioned if further site investigation was justified. A large snowdrift formed in and above a test profile on the east side of a western extension of the butte in the winter of 1986–1987, and as it melted in the spring of 1987, it removed enough of the deposits to expose a projectile point and the end of a bone that later proved to be on the edge of a bison bone bed. This discovery was pure luck — ​and unexpected; the National Geographic Society (NGS) offered me enough support to attempt to

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explore the extent of the bone bed in 1987. The results of this indicated that it was a bison bone bed of undetermined size and would require a major excavation. NSF agreed to support a 1988 field season and analysis of the materials the following winter. The 1988 investigations exposed a bone bed containing an MNI of 29 animals determined by lower molars. We do not believe that the configuration of the bones provides sufficient evidence to confirm it as a kill area; rather, it is more likely to have been a pile of butchered carcass elements from a nearby kill location that will probably never be located because the butte top is the only remaining part of the original surface upon which the cultural activities occurred. Bone preservation was far from ideal, and bones required in-place treatment with a special preservative and light plaster casts to allow for removal. Radiocarbon dates from the bone bed coincide quite well with those from the earlier excavations in the other site area. At this time the Mill Iron site is somewhat of an anomaly that has not provided the hoped-for definitive answers to the problem of the Goshen Cultural Complex. First, the radiocarbon dates raised eyebrows. If correct, the earlier Mill Iron dates suggest that Goshen is older than Clovis, which seems highly unlikely. On the other hand, the younger Mill Iron radiocarbon dates, if correct, would put Goshen roughly contemporaneous with Folsom. Except for the fluting process, it is possible to see similarities between the Mill Iron site Goshen (Figure 6.16, bottom) and Folsom (Figure 6.17) pressure-­flaking strategies and general point morphologies, which led to the suggestion of Folsom evolving out of Goshen. Goshen projectile points demonstrate a distinctive basal thinning but lack any feature that can be accepted as Folsom fluting. If any of the above suggestions prove correct, Mill Iron needs to be part of the following chapter. Yet another line of thinking is that the Mill Iron projectile points are technologically close to Plainview, which, on the Southern Plains at least, is believed to be post-Folsom in age. I think that it will be some time before we get this one sorted out. However, the University of New Mexico Press published an edited volume on the Mill Iron site (Frison 1996).

The Upper Twin Mountain Bison Kill in Middle Park, Colorado I received a phone call one morning from James ( Jim) Chase in Granby, Colorado, inquiring if I was interested in bones eroding out of a hillside. I agreed to meet him the following day, and we went to a location on a

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Figure 6.17. (a–f ) Folsom points from the Hanson site (drawing by Connie Robinson).

steep, sagebrush-covered slope at an elevation of 8,400 feet (2,548 meters) in Middle Park, Colorado, one of several high-altitude montane basins within the central and southern Rocky Mountains. The headwaters of the Colorado River are in Middle Park, and the Upper Twin Mountain (UTM) site is several kilometers north of Kremling, Colorado, at the beginning of Troublesome Creek, a drainage of the Colorado River. At first glance I thought that it was probably of recent origin, but the bones looked too large, and the surrounding soil color was not right. The visible bones had recently been removed from their original context by artifact hunters; I salvaged two nearly complete long bones that, compared

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with specimens in our faunal collections, proved too large to be Bison bison. Mr. Chase showed me two projectile points allegedly picked up at the site that would pass for Goshen or Plainview, were certainly of Paleoindian age, and together provided more than enough evidence to initiate further investigation. The site is on BLM land, and the district archaeologist, Frank Rupp, helped with the necessary federal permits and enough funding that we were able to house and feed students and several specialists and volunteers in the field. It is questionable that the UTM site is an actual bison kill location, but if not, it was probably very close to one. The bison bone bed is actually at the bottom of a rotational slump that left a slump mass at the slope base. The lowest cultural materials, bison bone and artifacts, occur at the base of the scar, indicating that they were deposited there soon after the slump occurred. The bone bed produced an MNI of 15 Bison antiquus that were killed in late fall or early winter (Todd et al. 1996:165–169) and two radiocarbon dates of 10,240 and 10,470 rcybp. Two projectile points that would fit in either Goshen or Plainview were recovered in place among the bones. UTM is presently the highest-altitude Paleoindian bison kill known and forced us to rethink the ability of bison and humans to cope with harsh winter conditions (see Kornfeld et al. 1999).

The Hawken Bison Trap Site in Northeast Wyoming Among the criteria suggested earlier for a Paleoindian site was that it contain extinct fauna. The Hawken bison trap site met this requirement, but radiocarbon dates indicated that it was only about 6,500 years old. This was nearly 1,400 years after the latest Paleoindian occupation at the HG site and the same number of years before the first known appearance of the modern species Bison bison. However, to me the procurement strategy closely resembles a Paleoindian one such as that documented at the AB site and is an outstanding example of a natural trap. For these reasons the Hawken site is included here. While I was excavating at the Vore Buffalo Jump in 1971, a local rancher stopped by and alerted me that people were digging in a pile of bones on his ranch near Sundance, Wyoming, and were collecting the projectile points found among the bones. He took me to the location, and I quickly confirmed his observations. The bones were coming out of a nearly perpendicular arroyo bank under several feet of overburden and were scattered from

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there to the arroyo bottom. In addition, water from a recent thunderstorm had carried bones several hundred yards down the arroyo. We recovered a complete horn core that was significantly larger than any from the nearby LP-age Vore site, and we took several long bones back to the lab, where measurements confirmed animals that were intermediate in size between Bison antiquus and Bison bison. We knew that it was important to recover as much information as possible before the looters returned and destroyed more of the site. A hastily assembled volunteer field crew saved the remainder of the site and recovered a large faunal and weaponry assemblage from three bone levels separated by sterile deposits (Figure 6.18, top). Radiocarbon dates were around 6,500 rcybp, and taphonomic analysis indicated a late fall– early winter kill. Michael Wilson studied the bones, compared them with other known bison of similar age, and concluded that they represented a population of Bison occidentalis, intermediate in size between B. antiquus and B. bison. We named this the Hawken 1 site. The topography of the area is ideal for a natural trap. A large gathering area extends well beyond the mouth of an arroyo with banks that become increasingly steeper and higher upstream. We proposed that the animals were driven up the arroyo until they were stopped by a sandstone wall (Figure 6.18, top, c) and were then killed by hunters who were using atlatls and large dart points, as suggested by the numbers of the latter recovered among the bones. It is an outstanding example of utilizing a natural feature for bison procurement during a poorly known time period on the Northwestern Plains (Frison et al. 1976). The weaponry may lack some of the aesthetic qualities of some earlier Paleoindian cultural complexes but does represent the appearance of side notching of projectile points (Figure 6.18, bottom), which I believe may have been a modification of a Late Paleoindian, lanceolate projectile point type. One noticeable feature on the Hawken points is the extremely sharp tip (Figure 6.18, bottom, a). Experiments have demonstrated that this enhances the ability of the point to penetrate bison hide. On other points (Figure 6.18, bottom, c–d), the sharp points apparently snapped off on impact. To me, the Hawken 1 bison kill site is most likely an extension of Paleoindian bison kill strategies. In the same area is another arroyo with bone and stone tools exposed in profile, Hawken 2. This appears to be a remnant of a larger site removed by lateral erosion of an arroyo. Nine skulls, eight male and one female, are

Figure 6.18. Hawken site: top — ​(a) arroyo bottom, (b) Bison occidentalis bone bed, (c) natural barrier that formed the distal end of the trap; bottom — ​(a–d) side-notched projectile points from the bone bed.

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within the size range of those from Hawken 1, and a radiocarbon date on charcoal of 6,000 rcybp offers strong evidence that the B. occidentalis were present in the area and hunted over a period of at least several hundred years. I happened to look over the fence into the Hawken family garden one day and noticed bison remains similar to those we had recovered from the Hawken 1 site. Mr. Hawken took me to the area, and it appeared that the bones had washed out of a different arroyo several years earlier, but we could not find more bone or artifacts. Also in the area is a remnant of a bison bone bed, Hawken 3, with MPA projectile point diagnostics; another, Hawken 4, has produced LPA diagnostics; and a several-meter-high, perpendicular drop-off was used briefly as a LP jump-off site. The deep, steep-banked arroyos and a bluff in the area adjacent to an ideal bison gathering area apparently created a favorable location for bison procurement for several thousand years of post-Paleoindian time.

Other Plains Paleoindian Bison Kill Sites Paleoindian bison kills appeared outside of Wyoming in the 1970s. These included the Jones-Miller Hell Gap site near Wray in eastern Colorado, excavated during 1973–1975 by the SI (Stanford 1978). The project was funded by NGS, which, in addition, provided space for a feature article in its magazine (Stanford 1979). Another is the Hudson-Meng site of Alberta Cultural Complex age near Chadron, Nebraska (Agenbroad 1978), which produced an exceptionally large bison bone bed containing remains of several hundred animals. In retrospect, I have to think of the 1970s and its Paleo­ indian bison kills as the halcyon days of High Plains archaeology. Research funding was adequate, and there was limited interference from federal and state regulators. The results brought about significant improvements in data recovery and analysis and helped transform Paleoindian archaeology into a multidisciplinary science.

‹7› Early Paleoindian Sites and Pleistocene Fauna

Clovis, mammoths, and Folsom were the magic words in Early Paleoindian studies when I returned to UW in 1967, and in summer 1973, two sites were discovered in the Bighorn Basin of northern Wyoming that added UW to the limited number of anthropology departments working in that area of research on the Plains. I mentioned in the first chapter that Dr. Barnum Brown, the paleontologist who had identified the Folsom site bison in New Mexico as an extinct species, was excavating dinosaur bones in that area in 1934 and that I visited the location at that time and would become involved in a nearby Folsom site nearly four decades later. That site was the first of the two Early Paleoindian sites, and the circumstances of its discovery involved two members of the WAS.

The Hanson Folsom Site Milford and Imogene Hanson were artifact collectors and dedicated WAS members living in Cody, Wyoming. It was their fondest hope that someday they would discover a Paleoindian site. This became a reality in late August 1973. While crossing an arroyo they noticed artifacts on a talus slope, and they believed that one could be part of a fluted point. Unable to conceal their excitement, they immediately called me, and I was able to confirm that the artifact was indeed part of a Folsom point. Visiting the site the next day, I could see items eroding out of a level well below the top of a terrace. A test trench into the buried level produced more of the point (Figure 6.17a) along with several stone tools and flakes, indicating that this was a site deserving further investigation. I submitted a proposal to NSF and was granted funding for the 1975 field season. 123

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The 1975 investigations produced a large tool assemblage, and we needed to formulate a plan for analysis. I had been strongly influenced by Dr. Arthur Jelinek, one of my professors while in graduate school at UM. Lithic technology was emerging as a likely major interpretive tool in archaeology, and in 1964, NSF hosted a lithic technology conference at Les Eyzies, France, attended by 11 from the United States and six from France. Leading the sessions were François Bordes from the Université de Bordeaux and Don Crabtree of Kimberly, Idaho, who were experts on percussion and pressure flaking, respectively, and treated the invited guests to actual demonstrations that left no doubt of the possibilities of lithic technology for archaeological study (see Jelinek 1965). H. Marie Wormington, who had also attended the Les Eyzies conference and was impressed with Bordes’s and Crabtree’s ability in stone flaking, later met a young man, Bruce Bradley, who demonstrated outstanding ability in both percussion and pressure flaking. Wormington arranged a meeting with Bradley, who accompanied me to UW and presented a demonstration of his flint knapping. We enjoyed each other’s company, and Bradley subsequently joined my field crews, including the one at the Hanson Folsom site, and, later on, helped analyze the lithic assemblage. Bradley was influenced by both Jelinek and Bordes, and because the Hanson Folsom site produced a large stone tool assemblage, we decided to use a modified version of Bordes’s tool-classification system (see Frison and Bradley 1980). Unfortunately, it was not a wise decision and was never accepted by our colleagues. On the other hand, no other known Folsom site at that time had produced the quantity and diversity of flaked-stone tools in as good a context. However, Bradley did achieve some agreement with his biface reduction and stages of fluted projectile point manufacture. The Hanson site is located close to sources of excellent stone-flaking materials; included also is a widely recognized source of dinosaur fossils that includes gastroliths (gizzard stones), many of which were utilized as both hammerstones and stone flaking materials at the Hanson site. I am convinced that we had evidence of house floors at the Hanson site. In one part of the site there were two superimposed floors separated by a layer of sand that had to have been carried into the site. One level had part of a lithic tool kit in place (Frison and Bradley 1980:Figures 55, 57). In another location, there was what could have been a center post for a lodge and the tine of a large mule deer antler driven into the ground that we thought might have been a peg to hold a hide covering in place (Frison

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and Bradley 1980:Figure 69a). A badly decomposed mountain sheep skull appeared in the assemblage, and lacking a means of positive identification, we speculated that it could be the extinct form Ovis catclawensis. However, the distinction between it and Ovis canadensis is obscure and based mainly on size, and any valid determination requires a large population sample. A final thought on the Hanson site is how the paleontologist Barnum Brown would respond if he could see the results of the Hanson site investigation, which occurred a short distance north of his 1934 dinosaur excavations. I woke up one morning when we were well into the Hanson site inves­ tigations and noticed an unfamiliar pickup camper parked near camp. I spotted a couple walking along the road into camp and invited them into our camper for coffee. The visitors turned out to be the geologist Luna Leopold from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and his wife, who had a summer home along the Green River near Pinedale, Wyoming. They spent two days with us and pointed out a number of things related to the geomorphology of the area and site-formation processes involved with the Hanson site. I was familiar with Leopold’s earlier work on the postglacial chronology of alluvial valleys in Wyoming (Leopold and Miller 1954) because these kinds of water transport studies affected archaeological sites. In addition, several researchers went to his Green River home and performed experiments to determine the results of water transport of bones when bone modification was a strong trend in the analysis of faunal materials in archaeological and paleontological sites. Leopold was influential in ecologi­ cal studies of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and in bringing wolves back to Yellowstone National Park (YNP).

Folsom Evidence at the Agate Basin Site The AB Paleoindian site proved to be larger and more complex than first realized. In 1959, Folsom evidence was discovered there about 120 meters west and on the same side of the arroyo as Roberts’s original test in 1942. The location became known as the Brewster site (Agogino and Frankforter 1960), but it was proved later to be part of the larger AB site complex. UW excavations at AB between 1972 and 1979 resulted in establishing AB site Areas 1, 2, and 3 (Frison 1982c:Figures 1.10, 1.12). Good separation was present between the AB and Folsom cultural levels in Area 2. A bone bed (Figure 7.1) in the Folsom component produced a nearly complete female skeleton, parts of a calf, and parts of seven other bison. In addition, there

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Figure 7.1. Bison bone bed from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site.

were parts of at least four pronghorns (Antilocapra americana) (Walker 1982). Artifact distribution in one part of the Folsom component and part of a bison rib driven into the outside circumference of the supposed structure (Frison 1982d:Figure 2.18) suggest the likely presence of a living structure not unlike the ones mentioned above at the Hanson site. Bruce Bradley studied the tools and concluded that two items, one of elk antler (Figure 7.2a–b) and the other made from a bison metatarsal, were tools used in removing channel flakes (Frison and Bradley 1981). Strong support for this was a nearly complete fluted point and several channel and biface reduction flakes, suggesting a possible Folsom point-manufacturing area. First identified as bone, one complete shaft and part of another made by deep grooves in elk antler are believed to be projectile points (Frison and Zeimens 1980). Bone items include eyed needles (see Figure 7.2c) and incised sections of bison ribs. In addition, there is a large assemblage of chipped-stone tools and bifaces. A radiocarbon date of 10,780 ± 150 rcybp (I-10899) is almost identical to one from the Lindenmeier site about 175 miles to the south in Colorado, where the assemblage bears a strong similarity to the AB Folsom components’ bone and chipped-stone tools. They are so similar, in fact, that one can almost visualize the AB Folsom group packing up their belongings and moving to Lindenmeier or vice versa.

Figure 7.2. Elk antler tool (a–b) and bone needle (c) from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site (photo by Robert Swaim).

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Folsom evidence had been found at the AB locality in 1959 at what was then known as the Brewster site, mentioned above (Agogino and Frankforter 1960). This investigation took place at about 275 feet (84 ­meters) to the west, upstream, and on the same side of the arroyo from the Folsom component described above. UW excavations in 1979–1980 butted directly against the 1959 excavations and recovered a small amount of Folsom cultural evidence, including a fire hearth radiocarbon dated at 10,665 ± 85 rcybp (SI-3732). This is close to the date from the Folsom level described above, although at this time we cannot connect the two Folsom components. Of some interest, however, the UW excavations produced a male Bison antiquus skull (Figure 7.3, top) that was compressed to an estimated two-thirds of its original thickness by more than 12 feet (3.7 meters) of overlying deposits. It is the only presently known male bison skull (Figure 7.3, bottom) of confirmed Folsom age found north of the Folsom site in northern New Mexico.

The Krmpotich Folsom Site in Western Wyoming Jack Krmpotich, a member of the Sweetwater Chapter of the WAS in Rock Springs, Wyoming, is an avocational archaeologist who unfailingly shares his information with me and other professionals. He found Folsom materials in a small area of the sand dunes a short distance south of the Finley site and monitored the location for several years. He took me there several times, until I was finally convinced that it was a site that needed investigation. The site is on BLM land, and an excavation permit was approved. Three investigations at the site over the same number of years produced a large assemblage of Folsom points, preforms, tools, and flakes, indicating a camp and workshop. They also demonstrated clearly the stratigraphic problems with sites in areas of wind and sand transport (Kornfeld et al. 2010:409–413).

The Colby Mammoth Kill in Northern Wyoming The badlands of the Bighorn Basin in north-central Wyoming are known as unbearably hot in summer and cold to the same degree in winter. Mountain ranges surrounding the Bighorn Basin often deny the interior adequate precipitation for good grass cover in comparison with the Powder River Basin east of the Bighorn Mountains. A common cynical remark by

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Figure 7.3. Male Bison antiquus skull upon exposure (top) and after curation (bottom) from a Folsom component at the Agate Basin site (photo by Robert Swaim).

livestock operators in the Bighorn Basin is that in drought years, jackrabbits carry lunches and the piss ants carry canteens in order to survive. In summer 1962, a heavy equipment operator, Donald Colby, was moving dirt to build a dam to collect water for highway construction. Colby was interested in artifacts and fossils; he happened to spot what appeared to be a large projectile point (Figure 7.4, top), stopped his machine, and recovered the object. He knew that it was a projectile point, but different from any he was familiar with. Colby showed it to an archaeologist, Gene Galloway, who happened to be traveling through the area, who informed him that it

Figure 7.4. Clovis projectile point found by Don Colby (top) and a Clovis point in situ near Bone Pile No. 1 (bottom) at the Colby Mammoth Kill site (top photo by Robert Swaim).

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was almost certainly a Clovis point, although somewhat different from ones he was familiar with. Galloway indirectly contacted me with the suggestion that it might be of some significance and to try to contact Mr. Colby for more information. However, I was struggling to finish an undergraduate degree at UW and could not pursue the matter. On the other hand, I was familiar with the location of Colby’s discov­ ery. It was about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) east of the town of Worland, Wyoming, located on Slick Creek, an intermittent stream that drains into the Bighorn River. It was common practice to trail livestock back and forth between the towns of Worland and Ten Sleep, Wyoming, a distance of about 30 miles (48 kilometers). Water is scarce in these badlands, and a small reservoir was constructed earlier at the same location Colby was working to allow animals to water up before starting out on the trail. They always started out at daybreak to take advantage of the cool morning hours and would stop for the night at another reservoir halfway to their final desti­ nation. The new reservoir Colby helped build impounded several times as much water as the first one but left it intact several feet below the new water level. I had trailed cattle through the area and had watered animals at the pond more than once. I managed a quick stop at the location in 1964 but could see nothing to stir my interest, nor was I able to contact Colby and finally get a look at his Clovis point. My next visit was two years later with the same results. After returning to UW, I started visiting the location annually. My 1973 visit occurred just after water from a violent thunderstorm washed over the area. After the flooding stopped, I spotted a mammoth tooth fragment. Moving farther on hands and knees, I found more tooth fragments, and just a few more feet beyond was a mass of tooth fragments coming from a badly decomposed mandible. This marked the discovery of one of the major Clovis-age mammoth kills in North America. The location of the discovery was on a level area close to the bottom of an arroyo about 20 feet (6.1 meters) deep with gently sloping banks. With the help of two students, George Zeimens and Ross Hilman, I made a small test in the area and found a Clovis point and a mammoth proximal humerus with the distal end eroded off at an angle at ground level. The discovered mandible proved to be one of a pair, and further testing revealed pieces of other large bones. Mammoth bone and a Clovis point suggested some connection between the two, but before proceeding further, we called the geologist John Albanese to study the location. His first assessment was

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Figure 7.5. Removing a mammoth skull from the Colby site in 1973 (photo by Terrill Gibbons).

that both items were on a cut terrace surface with little possibility of deeper deposits. However, deepening the test unit revealed more mammoth bones, and a trench placed at right angles to the arroyo channel revealed that the deposits containing the mammoth bones were in the channel of an old arroyo. After the event that left the mammoth remains in the old arroyo, it was filled with aggrading deposits. At some later date, downcutting began, and the new channel was eventually cut to a depth just below the old one but followed a slightly different course, leaving part of the old channel containing the mammoth bones still intact. We placed casts on the first skull and removed it in late fall 1973 (Figure 7.5). This and excavations funded by NSF and UW at the Colby site in 1974, 1975, and 1978 produced partial remains of at least eight mammoths, one of them a fetus. Two bone piles were separated by 100 feet (30 meters). One appeared to be nearly intact, while the other was more dispersed. Two more Clovis points were recovered in situ (Figure 7.4, bottom), leaving little doubt that the site involved human activity and was possibly a kill area. The undisturbed bone pile (Figure 7.6) contained the articulated scapula, humerus, and ribs 3–13. Ribs 1, 2, and 14 were present but had moved a short distance downslope. Thoracic vertebrae had been removed, and ribs 15–19

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Figure 7.6. Mammoth Bone Pile No. 2 at the Colby Mammoth Kill site (photo by Ed Rasmussen; courtesy UW Photo Service).

were missing. Stacked around the front quarter was a scapula, an innominate, a femur, and several other bones. The pile was capped by the skull of a male estimated to have been between two and three years old. This skull was the highest of all mammoth remains and close to the surface. The top appeared to have been recently sheared off, and I am convinced that this was done by the horse-drawn Fresno scraper used to acquire fill dirt for the first reservoir dam. An arctic anthropologist looked at the pictures of this most complete bone pile and remarked that to him, it closely resembled Eskimo frozen meat caches. To me, this appeared to be a possible interpretation, so I submitted a short report, which was accepted by Science (Frison 1976b). Not surprisingly the idea that this might have been a cold-weather, frozen meat cache was met with skepticism and led to the suggestion by one critic that the bone pile could have resulted from water transport (Shipman 1981:87– 90). I thought that the criticism was too pointed to be ignored, so in response, experiments were performed with the water transport of modern elephant bones in a channel with gradient and bed conditions similar to the one at the Colby site. The results demonstrated that the configuration of elements in the pile, especially the articulated front quarter in the center

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with the complete skull on top, was extremely unlikely to have resulted from water transport (Frison and Todd 1986:61–68). Lawrence Todd and I analyzed the mammoth bones, and the results along with ancillary studies were published in an edited volume (Frison and Todd 1986). Lacking a way to determine the seasonality of the Colby mammoth kill from tooth eruption schedules, the only argument for a cold-weather meat cache at the site relied on the claim that the meat had to be frozen or it would have soon spoiled. However, molar tooth eruption indicated that the season of several Paleoindian bison kills including Casper, Horner, and AB was in late fall and early winter. I believed that this provided sufficient evidence for cold-weather meat caches in Paleoindian times and was enough to suggest that this could have also been a winter survival strategy for Clovis hunters at the Colby site mammoth kill. The NGS got wind of the Colby site and sent one of its feature writers, Thomas Canby, and an artist, Roy Anderson, to UW to have me present my ideas on a possible mammoth-procurement strategy employed at the site. As mentioned earlier, I have always been skeptical of artists’ conceptions of these kinds of past events, but I agreed to participate. An NGS publication used Anderson’s drawing in a feature article (Canby 1979) but edited out the section in the text that described the Colby site. The excuse was that space limitations forced them to cut a certain number of words and the Colby site was the one that got the ax. I was somewhat bitter over this at the time, but after rereading the NGS article more than three decades later, there is no question in my mind that the data and interpretations derived from the Colby site have withstood the test of time better than much of the other data presented in that article. On the positive side, I developed a strong personal liking for the artist, Roy Anderson, and we have contacted each other several times since. Following the Colby site investigations, I strongly believed that we would find more evidence of Clovis and mammoths within the Bighorn Basin, but this expectation failed to materialize. Limited annual precipitation in the interior basin is reflected in sparse vegetation to obscure the surface, and artifact hunters have found only very limited Clovis diagnostics. With the most reliable radiocarbon dates on the Colby site at 10,870 ± 20 rcybp (see Waters and Stafford 2007), it is tempting to suggest that the Colby site might represent the last gasp of the Clovis mammoth hunters, at least in this part of North America. In addition, I have to argue that human predation on family groups of a mammoth population in which

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the females, based on African elephants for comparison, bred at about five years, had a gestation period of about two years, and had about a five-year interval between births created a problem for survival. These considerations, added to what appears to have been deteriorating ecological conditions at the time, had to be a real threat to the survival of the species.

Mammoth Sites in Arizona C. Vance Haynes at the University of Arizona was the authority on Clovis studies at the time I performed the first investigations at the Colby site. I had had earlier contact with Haynes and was well aware of his geoarchaeological studies (Haynes Jr. 1968) and was well aware also that if I was to continue with Clovis and other Paleoindian studies, I should attempt to establish a closer relationship. Haynes was reinvestigating the Lehner Mammoth Kill site along the San Pedro River (Haury et al. 1959), and he suggested that I come to the site for a few days during the summer of 1974. This venture proved to be a valuable experience, and I was taken to other sites including Murray Springs (see Haynes and Huckell 2007). It was the beginning of a long-term and rewarding relationship. In addition, I was able to become acquainted with and enjoy the hospitality of Ed Lehner and his wife, at that time the landowners of the Lehner site. The Colby Mammoth Kill investigations opened the door for invited visits to several other Clovis-age sites. These included the Aubrey and Gault sites in Texas; the Page/Ladson and other sites in the Aucilla River area in north Florida; the Dietz site in Oregon; the Lamb site in New York State; and closer to home, the Lange-Ferguson site in the badlands of South ­Dakota. Another sojourn to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada was arranged by the Desert Research Center in Reno, to a site that yielded mammoth remains but no Clovis evidence; and the last was to the initial investigation of the Richey Clovis Cache in Washington State, described below with regard to Clovis caches. These trips served to emphasize that Clovis survival strategies involved much more than mammoth kill sites.

Clovis Artifact Caches Items of flaked stone and carved bone found together have been identified as Clovis by the projectile points, and these are commonly referred to as Clovis caches. We do not know if these were objects hidden with the intent

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of recovering them for future use or if they were ritual objects not to be disturbed. However, the presence of red ochre in most instances and human bone in another suggests some sort of ritual intent. At this time, their recovery locations are not predictive, and their discovery resulted from earth disturbances not related to archaeological investigations, with the consequence that, with one exception, they were not able to be evaluated in their original context. The exception is the Richey Clovis Cache, accidentally discovered in an apple orchard in Wenatchee, Washington. However, part of the site remained intact, and I was among several professionals chosen to participate in the excavation and actually exposed one of the spectacular Clovis points recovered there (see Mehringer 1988). The earliest of these discoveries was the Anzick Clovis Cache near Wilsal, Montana, found in 1968 by equipment operators using an end loader. The cache consisted of more than 100 red ochre–covered items and included Clovis projectile points, bifaces, tools, bone shafts, and two human mandibles, which led to its designation as a Clovis burial. I first saw several of these items when Larry Lahren from Livingston, Montana, a graduate student at the University of Calgary, Alberta, brought part of the assemblage to the 1971 SAA annual meeting in Norman, Oklahoma. I was still unsure of my ability to correctly identify the artifacts, so I contacted Arthur Jelinek, then at the University of Arizona and also at the conference, who, after examining the assemblage, agreed that they just about had to be Clovis (see Lahren and Bonnichsen 1974). In 1988, Forrest Fenn of Santa Fe, New Mexico, acquired 56 flakedstone artifacts attached to a framed wooden plaque with copper wire. Some were typical Clovis points; other bifaces demonstrated what I believed was Clovis lithic technology, and all retained evidence of red ochre. In October 1988, the National Geographic published pictures of the Richey Cache mentioned above. Forrest Fenn noticed what he believed was a similarity between his recent acquisition and artifacts from the Richey Cache; this prompted a phone call to me that resulted in a quick trip to Santa Fe. I was able to learn that the collection was discovered in about 1902 but not the exact location. The man who discovered it mounted the entire collection on the wooden plaque and stored it in his basement, where it was undisturbed until about seven decades later, the son of the man who discovered it gave it to his daughter-in-law, who subsequently sold it in Santa Fe. By this time, recollections of its discovery were dim, although they believed that it was somewhere in the Three Corners area where Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming meet.

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Fenn allowed me to take several of the items to a meeting, where I showed them to Bruce Bradley, who agreed that they passed all the requirements that we believed identified Clovis lithics. It was an opportunity to study outstanding examples of Clovis technology applied to a wide variety of stone flaking materials from widespread sources in Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah that produce several examples of chert, obsidian, and smoky quartz crystal. The obsidian items proved important in establishing the authenticity of the collection. Lacking any datable materials, I took several of the obsidian specimens to Irving Friedman, the obsidian expert at the USGS in Denver. Thick hydration rinds confirmed ages of several thousand years and demonstrated that they could not be products of a modern flint knapper. We wanted to study the artifacts and publish the results not only because the collection demonstrated Clovis lithic technology but because its publication could also lead to the recognition of other caches. The publishing part became a reality when Forrest Fenn underwrote most of the expense to publish full-size color photographs by Pete Bostrom and line drawings of each artifact by Sarah Moore (see Frison and Bradley 1999).

Other Clovis Caches My wife, June, and I made a trip to Idaho to see the 29 items in the Simon Clovis Cache (Butler 1963) discovered during land-leveling operations by W. D. Simon at Big Camas Prairie near Fairfield, Idaho. Mr. Simon told me that he was operating a heavy earthmover, detected a strange sound, stopped his machine, and spied several complete Clovis points still undisturbed and just missed by the blade of the earthmover. However, a 23-centimeter-­long biface was broken in several places and may have produced the strange sound that caught his attention. On this same trip, we were able to make a detour and, for my first time, examine the entire Anzick Cache on display at the Montana Historical Society in Helena. Another Clovis cache was found in 1963 in Crook County, Wyoming, by Harold Erickson, a member of a seismic survey crew. He bulldozed a road into the side of an arroyo and exposed a reddish colored area about 5 feet (1.5 meters) below the surface that contained several flaked-stone bifaces and one unmistakable Clovis point. Allegedly, the assemblage originally contained several bone shafts, but if true, they were no longer present. Forrest Fenn brought the items to the PAC in Boulder, Colorado, in 1997, and it was agreed that they bore a close similarity to some from the Fenn and Anzick caches.

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Mr. Erickson passed away and never revealed the site location, but K. Tankersley, C. V. Haynes, and F. Fenn were able to locate the exact spot with some of the red ochre still exposed in the profile of the bulldozer cut. Unfortunately, I was tied up with fieldwork and unable to participate in the expedition to locate the site, which was named the Crook County, Wyoming, Clovis Cache (see Tankersley 2002:104–134). This was my last involvement with Clovis caches, but others have more recently come to light. Many times since I have regretted not being able to join the group that was luckily able to locate the exact spot of the Crook County Clovis Cache.

The Sheaman Site: Maybe and Maybe Not Clovis Named after the landowner, Robert Sheaman, the Sheaman site lies about half a mile (800 meters) northeast of AB near the head of an arroyo that drains into Moss Agate Creek, the same drainage that contains the AB site. The cultural component was exposed through lateral cutting of the arroyo bank, and much of the remaining part was lost to artifact hunters. Bruce Bradley, who studied the assemblage recovered in the UW excavations, believed that the characteristics of several large flakes and blades strongly suggested Clovis lithic technology. Most convincing of this was a refitted sequence of biface reduction flakes (Figure 7.7) and a 20-centimeter-long section of a polished bone or antler cylinder with an oval cross section lacking part of the distal end (Figure 7.8a). The biface reduction flakes have an interesting history. I recovered the Sheaman site flakes in 1979 and took them to the SI in 1980 for analysis. One group of flakes of yellow color with black inclusions was easily separated from the assemblage, as was another group of a dark red color. While studying the proximal end of a yellow flake one day, I accidentally discovered that it refit to the distal end of a red flake. The red flakes had undoubtedly been close enough to a fire hearth to alter their color. Subsequently I was able to refit enough of the flakes to form parts of both sides of a bifacial reduction sequence, mentioned above (Figure 7.7). An angular bevel on the proximal end of the polished bone or antler cylinder (Figure 7.8a) was covered with distinct cross-hatching when first recovered. The polish rapidly changed to a dull luster soon after exposure, and the cross-hatching almost disappeared a short time later. It demonstrates a close similarity to bone shafts from the Anzick Clovis Cache (Figure 7.8b–c). Bradley and I strongly believe that other refit biface reduction

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Figure 7.7. (a–b) Refitted biface reduction flakes from the Sheaman site.

flakes also are strong indicators of Clovis lithic technology (see Bradley 1982:203–208). After several discussions and comparisons of Clovis points, we believe that the one recovered projectile point (Frison 1982e:Figure 2.94) can best be classified as Clovis. However, radiocarbon dates from the Sheaman site have not fallen into the generally accepted time period of Clovis occupation in North America. An accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) date on charcoal is 10,690 ± 105 rcybp, and a date on the bone or antler cylinder is 10,305 ± 15 rcybp; if correct, and as most Early Paleoindian specialists are prone to believe, both are too recent for Clovis. On the other hand, Sheaman site investigations in 2000 produced a radiocarbon date of about 11,200 rcybp on a black cumulic horizon with a multiple-use flake tool at the base (Haynes Jr. et al. 2004), which adds support to the claim that the Sheaman site has a Clovis component, but there may be some mixing from a later Paleoindian presence. My final comment is that the database on Clovis is still far from

Figure 7.8. Carved bone cylinders from the Sheaman site (a) and the Anzick site (b–c) (from Frison 1991).

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complete, and as more data come to light, Sheaman may yet prove to have a Clovis component, but further investigation is needed.

Camels in Plains Paleoindian Sites The first excavation at the Casper HG site was in 1971, and part of it was left intact for future investigation. However, the location is a sandy area with no vegetation cover, and one of the original site discoverers, Rodney Laird, noticed that wind was exposing bone and artifacts in the unexcavated areas. Consequently, in 1976 we excavated the remainder of the site, and several bones of a single camel (Camelops hesternus) appeared among the bison bones in one area of the site just inside the entrance to the parabolic sand dune. Along with several nearly complete elements were a number of fragments; several of these refit to a humerus, resulting in what I believed was evidence of depressed fractures, suggesting deliberate green bone breakage (Figure 7.9, left). The same year, fragments of a camel metatarsus were recovered in the bottom level of the CKM site (discussed in Chapter 6), and these were refit to form a nearly complete element, with some of the breakage apparently resulting from deliberate fractures (Figure 7.9, right). I believed that the depressed fractures on both specimens were consistent with bone breakage for marrow recovery. Lacking comparative material and unsure of our species identification, we sent the specimens to S. David Webb at the Florida State Museum at the University of Florida, which finally resulted in a paper on camel remains in archaeological sites and some very speculative ideas on prehistoric camel procurement (Frison 1997; Frison, Walker, et al. 1978). At this point, we realized that we needed comparative material for camel identification. A solution came about quite unexpectedly. A cousin of mine, Gerald Frison, lived in southern California, and his wife, Geri, was involved with a wildlife park in Escondido, California. Geri knew a man at the wildlife park who had worked at an exotic animal farm at Tehachipi, California, who informed her that several camels had died at the farm and were buried in a trench a few years earlier. I contacted the animal farm and inquired if I could dig up the animals and retrieve the skeletons. The farm agreed to my request; UW provided gas money and a light truck, and my assistant, George Zeimens, and I along with our wives drove nonstop to Tehachipi and excavated four complete camel skeletons along with a llama skeleton that we were allowed to keep. They constitute a valuable and useful

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Figure 7.9. Camelops humerus from the Casper site (left) and metatarsus from the Carter/Kerr-McGee site (right).

addition to our faunal collections. Fortunately, the modern camel skeleton is similar enough to that of C. hesternus that it is adequate for comparative purposes. An interesting sidelight to the camel escapade is that we could determine that the untimely deaths of the four camels were apparently due to plastic hay-bailing twine they consumed, which impacted their digestive systems. There is one development with the Casper site camel that needs to be mentioned. A radiocarbon date on charcoal and another on bison bone along with the projectile point assemblage indicate a Hell Gap Cultural Complex Bison antiquus kill site at 10,000 rcybp. In 1999 I submitted a camel astragalus from the 1976 excavation for radiocarbon dating, and the result was a date of 11,190 ± 50 rcybp (CAMS-61899 [Frison 2000]), nearly 1,200 years older than the earlier dates. If the new date is correct, my earlier assumption that the bison and camel bones were contemporaneous may need revision.

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Pleistocene Animals in Natural Trap Cave and Other Sites On a plateau at the northern end of the Bighorn Mountains that c­ overs an area of about 25 square miles (61 square kilometers) at about 5,000 feet (1,510 meters) elevation is a 15.2-foot (4.6-meter) round opening in the Madison Formation (Mississippian) that forms the entrance into a large, bottle-shaped cavity 85.8 feet (26 meters) deep and 260 feet (80 meters) in diameter at the bottom (Figure 7.10, top). The opening is on a nearly flat surface and served as a trap for animals from an estimated 27,000 to 10,000 years ago (see Chomko and Gilbert 1987). There was no possibility of escape for any animal that fell through the opening. At that time, the site location was accessible only on foot or by a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Site investigations at Natural Trap Cave began in 1974 funded by NSF, NGS, and Earthwatch. The first requirement was to install a system of ladders for access in and out of the trap. June and I both made two trips down to the bottom to watch the actual excavation. The site yielded an impressive amount of long-extinct Pleistocene faunal materials that included Arctodus simus (short-faced bear), Felis atrox (American lion), Miracinonyx trumani (American cheetah), and Canis dirus (dire wolf ), all impressive carnivores. Equus sp. (horse), Camelops sp. (camel), Bison sp. (bison), and Ovis catclawensis (mountain sheep) were among the most prominent of the perissodactyls and artiodactyls. There was speculation that some carnivores may have gone down through the opening to feed on other animals already there: if so, it was a bad decision on their part because there was no way out. Provided the investigators’ interpretations are correct, most of these except for the horse and wolves were no longer there after about 12,000 years ago. There was one record of Mammuthus sp. that entered the record relatively late. I had the impression also that the investigators extended their investigations in hopes of finding human remains, but these never materialized. I have often wondered about the possibility of a human presence at the time of these large predators, particularly the short-faced bear, considering that I am well aware of and familiar with present-day interactions between human and grizzly, Ursos arctos. Made aware that someone might be careless enough to drive a vehicle into or otherwise fall into the trap, the BLM installed an iron grating over the opening (Figure 7.10, bottom). Little Boxelder Cave, located east of the North Platte River in central Wyoming, yielded a large assemblage of Pleistocene fauna (Anderson

Figure 7.10. Vertical profile (top left) and horizontal plan view (top right) of Natural Trap Cave (adapted from Hill et al. 1976) and a metal grid placed over the entrance (bottom) (bottom photo by Danny Walker).

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1968), and upon inspection of the tailings from that investigation, I noticed several large stone flakes of unquestionable human origin. At that time we did not know if the cave deposits were stratified and wondered if the human artifacts were in association with any of the extinct fauna. However, a subsequent investigation of the site demonstrated that the cave deposits were stratified, with no evidence of human association with any of the levels containing the Pleistocene fauna. Testing in Bush Shelter, a rockshelter site in the southeastern Bighorn Basin foothills with deep stratified deposits, produced cultural evidence at about 9,000 rcybp, and at a meter below this, with no cultural evidence, large numbers of the collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) appeared (see Walker 1987). The latter is found in the arctic today in glacial contexts, and we speculate about the possibility of its presence at the same time as the Colby site mammoth hunters. As a result of unresolved landowner relationships, investigations at Bush Shelter are on hold. However, I believe that this site has the possibility of revealing information on late Pleistocene microfauna and human occupations in the foothills and mountains adjacent to the Northwestern Plains. Attempting to learn more about late Pleistocene animals, June and I made a trip to the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California to see assembled skeletons of the same species recovered at Natural Trap Cave. These incursions into sites with Pleistocene fauna were of extreme interest but were becoming too much of a distraction from archaeological studies, so the trip to La Brea was my last venture into serious involvement with Pleistocene animals in nonarchaeological contexts. However, I think that it would be interesting to know the reactions of early human inhabitants in North America had they ever encountered a short-faced bear or an American lion.

‹8› Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian and Early Plains Archaic Pictograph Cave Pictograph Cave is an erosional recess at the base of a steep bluff a short distance east of Billings, Montana, and is best known for its array of painted prehistoric and early historic figures. In 1937, excavations in the cave began with a crew funded by the WPA. Oscar Lewis of the Montana Archaeological Survey was the first project director, and later on William Mulloy, at that time a graduate student at the University of Chicago, took over as director. After WWII, Mulloy utilized the material from Pictograph Cave and another cave nearby, Ghost Cave, as a substantial part of his Ph.D. dissertation at Chicago (Mulloy 1958), which became the foundation for Northwestern Plains prehistory. I was able to acquire a copy while still on the ranch, and because of the similarity of many perishable and imperishable artifacts from Pictograph Cave, Ghost Cave, and Spring Creek Cave, it was an aid in identifying many of the items from the latter site. I met Oscar Lewis while recuperating from back surgery in Billings in 1959 and was impressed with his intimate knowledge of Montana archaeology, but I could detect from his remarks that he was not too pleased with the results of the Pictograph Cave project. At the time of the Pictograph Cave investigations there was little Paleo­indian interest or research activity in the area. Mulloy did report two Eden-type projectile points in the Pictograph Cave assemblage, but he apparently did not believe that they were from a Paleoindian occupation level and instead thought that they were probably ones picked up and reused by later inhabitants. At that time also, there was little if any evidence of human occupation on the Northwestern Plains during the estimated 2,000–3,000 years of the Altithermal climatic period or a period without evidence following the end of Paleoindian times and the beginning of what 146

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Mulloy named the Early Middle Period at about 5,500 years ago. However, he emphasized that the data base was limited and new information could easily fill the gap in time. There was nothing substantial enough to suggest a Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian or an immediately following Early Middle or Early Plains Archaic period until the first results from the Mummy Cave excavations in the Absaroka Mountains in northwest Wyoming appeared (Wedel et al. 1968). On the other hand, artifact collectors in the northern Wyoming and southern Montana area were placing a high value on a certain type of projectile point that did finally prove to be of late Paleoindian age. It is lanceolate in outline form with alternately beveled blade edges and edges ground smooth near the base, and most demonstrate a parallel-oblique flaking pattern. I had found two of these while riding for cattle during my ranching years and realized that they were different in morphology from others I had found. Sheepherders often picked up artifacts, and I stopped by a sheep camp one day and found another the herder had accidentally swept out of his wagon along with other debris. I managed to contact the herder, who told me where he had found it. He also hinted that he would like to have it back because it would be worth a drink or two the next time he visited the town bar. I kept the artifact but gave him two dollars to help satisfy his thirst during his next trip to town. After WWII, plans were afoot to build the Yellowtail Dam in southern Montana to impound water from the Bighorn River that would flood parts of Bighorn River Canyon on both sides of the Wyoming–Montana line. Investigation of endangered archaeological sites took place in 1962–1964 under the direction of Wilfred Husted of the National Park Service (NPS), with headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska. Cave sites in Bighorn Canyon produced bi-beveled points in good context and with radiocarbon dates around 8,000 years ago. Husted gave them the type name of Pryor Stemmed after Pryor Mountain, located north of the Bighorn River in Montana (Husted 1969). I was pleased to know of a reliable late Paleo­indian date for the artifacts in question but wanted to find another site that would tell us more.

Schiffer Cave Ken Heuermann was a member of the WAS in Sheridan, Wyoming, and happened to know a rancher, Tony Schiffer, who lived on the North Fork of the Powder River on the southeast end of the Bighorn Mountains.

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Figure 8.1. (a–g) Pryor Stemmed projectile points from the Schiffer Cave site (bottom drawing by Connie Robinson).

Mr. Schiffer mentioned that he had found several bi-beveled points eroding out of the bottom of a cave in the North Fork of Powder River Canyon (Figure 8.1) a short distance from his ranch headquarters. We obtained permission to investigate the cave site and found most of it intact. In the spring of 1971, Heuermann, Gary Fry (another WAS member), my student George Zeimens, and I excavated most of the remainder of the cave and recovered several complete and partial bi-beveled points (Figure 8.1a–d).

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Features inside the cave included two fire pits with enough charcoal to yield radiocarbon dates of about 8,400 rcybp. We were puzzled by three other pit features that contained no evidence of fire and concluded that they might have been food-storage facilities. Faunal materials were rare and consisted of fragments of medium-sized mammals, probably mountain sheep and/ or deer long bones. Several species of seeds were recovered in and around the possible storage pits, raising the possibility that the occupants were collecting plant foods. This was my first experience excavating an actual Paleoindian site, and we named it Schiffer Cave. At that time, I believed that it provided evidence of a foothill-oriented human occupation (Frison 1973b) and was far different from the bison and other animal kills and camp sites with which we were more familiar. With Husted’s Bighorn Canyon sites, Schiffer Cave, and other bi-bevel (now renamed Pryor Stemmed) point locations, I felt that there was sufficient information to propose Pryor Stemmed as a late Paleoindian cultural complex (Frison and Grey 1980). This was actually the beginning of what a short time later became what I proposed as the Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian (FMP), separate ecologically from the Plains Paleoindian. I have to admit that there is a problem with the Pryor Stemmed projectile point as a type designation. It became clear that the alternate beveling of blade edges on these particular points was not present on the archetype (Figure 8.1a) but, rather, was part of a continual, ongoing process (Figure 8.1b–d). Another modification commonly found on Pryor Stemmed points is a deliberate burination for tool use of blade edges and faces of points broken distally (see, e.g., Figure 8.5e).

The Medicine Lodge Creek Project It is no surprise that the MLC site attracted prehistoric human occupations for at least 10,000 years. It is an ideal location along a flowing stream that, because of warm springs, never freezes over in winter and is located at the base of the western slope of the Bighorn Mountains with access to a wide variety of plant and animal resources. In addition, many natural features provide protection from the elements. The site lies along the south-­ facing, perpendicular wall of Medicine Lodge Creek Canyon as the stream emerges from its deep gorge in the mountains (Figure 8.2). Site testing in 1968 exposed 17 feet (5.3 meters) of stratified deposits on top of a level of river cobbles. A fire hearth on top of the cobbles produced a radiocarbon

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Figure 8.2. Location of the Medicine Lodge Creek site.

date of 4,000 rcybp. At the time, we believed that the cobbles precluded any earlier evidence of human occupation. However, in 1969 testing in a different area exposed a habitation level at about 8,000 rcybp. This date was not at the bottom of the deposits, so I believed that we had sufficient information to justify a proposal to NSF for a multiyear project. I was aware of other sites in the general area, and many of these were included in the proposal. We were aware also that our proposed activities would almost certainly reveal new sites, which proved to be a reliable prediction. Excavation of the main MLC site began in June 1973 with George Zeimens, by now a UW graduate student, as crew chief and a crew of UW students. The landowner, Orval Bunnell, had assumed that we were finished with our earlier test trenches and partially filled them with large rocks from his earlier land leveling. One was large enough that I had to rent a compressor and air hammer to drill a hole and use a stick of dynamite to split the rock into manageable pieces. Deepening the test below the cultural level with the radiocarbon date of 8,000 rcybp in 1971 revealed at least 18 cultural levels separated by sterile deposits in a 13-foot (4.0-meter) profile, and the deepest radiocarbon-dated level was just short of 10,000 rcybp. The next-to-youngest Paleoindian level at MLC produced Pryor Stemmed points with radiocarbon dates of around 8,100 and 8,300 rcybp. In retrospect, I am sure that the use of explosives in this manner would be frowned

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upon today, but at that time, many farms and ranches kept dynamite around for tasks such as removing tree stumps and building trails. Eventually, 17 Paleoindian projectile points were recovered from these levels (Figure 8.3), and with the exception of the Cody Complex, nearly all appeared different from those of the same or similar age from the HG site in southeast Wyoming. The faunal assemblages were also different, giving further cause to think that there might have been what we designated as FMP groups in the Bighorn Basin somewhat separated ecologically from the Plains groups. Many researchers are skeptical of this idea, but none have been able to successfully refute it. This part of the MLC site was designated Area 2. Admittedly the 17 Paleoindian projectile points constitute a small sample, but all are supported by radiocarbon dates at the site and well represented in local surface collections. Next on the program was to investigate Area 1, with the river cobbles at 17 feet below the original surface. We did not expect any cultural evidence below the top of the cobbles but were pleasantly surprised when, after penetrating about 4 feet (1.2 meters) of cobbles, Paleoindian diagnostics, some resembling those from Area 2, were found in place in undisturbed but poorly stratified deposits below (see Frison 2007a:Figure 3.8). Geologists Dr. David Love from the USGS and his son, Charles Love, a student at UW, were surprised that all of the older deposits had not been scoured out through time by high water flood stages of Medicine Lodge Creek. However, it does appear that massive rockfalls protected parts of the older cultural deposits. All told, it is another classic example where intact blocks of older cultural deposits resulted from geologic accidents. Our present thinking is that a massive collapse of the canyon wall provided protection for the Paleoindian occupation levels to accumulate and a subsequent but smaller collapse at the end of the Paleoindian occupations effectively sealed part of them off from further stream-scouring activity. However, there is little doubt that, through time, stream activity removed a large share of the MLC Paleoindian cultural deposits. Above the 13 feet (4.0 meters) of stratified Paleoindian deposits in Area 2 was a small section of an Early Plains Archaic (EPA) level with one diagnostic side-notched projectile point (Figure 8.3, between 10 and 11 feet below datum) but insufficient charcoal for a radiocarbon date. Directly above this, the landowner had removed about 10 feet of deposits in land-leveling operations and in the process unintentionally sacrificed what was almost certainly a significant body of EPA cultural evidence.

Figure 8.3. Vertical distribution of Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian artifacts from the Medicine Lodge Creek site.

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Fortunately, he subsequently began to take a strong interest in the site and ceased land-leveling operations. Dispersed throughout the 4 feet of river cobbles in Area 1 were secondarily deposited diagnostic projectile points of EPA age. With the 4,000-​ year-old date directly on top of the cobbles and Late Paleoindian evi­dence directly below, the cobble level represents about 4,000 years of time or what is believed to be the span of the EPA. This left us with no stratigraphic rec­ ord of the EPA at the actual MLC site. However, the ­cobble level produced a large assemblage of EPA diagnostic projectile points (Frison 2007b:Figure 4.1). Fortunately, this gap in time was filled by at least two nearby cave sites, Southsider Cave and Paint Rock V Rockshelter, and one open site, Laddie Creek, included under the MLC proposal to the NSF. These sites are mentioned later. The dirt-mover the landowner used was too small to budge one of the large blocks of wall collapse. This was fortunate for the cultural levels above the 4,000-year-old date on top of the river cobble level in Area 1 because it protected a triangular-shaped section of the deposits beyond the reach of the dirt-mover that included a remnant of the original surface. This block contained 18 feet (5.5 meters) of stratified and radiocarbon-dated cultural levels with diagnostics of MPA, LPA, LP, and Early Historic time periods (Figure 8.4). From a photograph taken in 1896, we know that the surface at the top of the small block was unchanged since that date (see Francis 2007:210). I had intentions of completing a report on MLC, but, as with certain other projects, it was set aside as a retirement project. In 1997 I decided to begin the analysis and publication of the FMP materials and study the remainder at a later date. Unexpectedly, in November 2004, Mark Mullins of Colorado Springs, Colorado, offered me sufficient funding to produce a manuscript using color throughout along with enough extra to open up old site profiles to recover new samples for radiocarbon dating. Also I wanted to submit samples collected in 1973–1974 for mass spectrometer radiocarbon dates in order to check on several solid carbon dates collected during the original site excavations with large plus and minus values. The new funding allowed us to include chapters on geology, the vege­ tative ecology of the site and its immediate environment, and the large array of rock art figures on the sandstone walls. Included also was enough funding to include appendixes on eight different investigative and analysis projects relating to the site. These included obsidian sourcing, ceramic

Figure 8.4. Vertical distribution of Middle Plains Archaic, Late Plains Archaic, and Late Prehistoric artifacts from the Medicine Lodge Creek site.

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analysis, analysis of edge-ground cobbles, analysis of historic trade beads, fauna from a Crow Indian component, avian fauna from the entire site, analysis of a figure inscribed on a portable sandstone slab found at the surface, and analysis of an unusual sandstone grinding slab recovered at the site but not in a cultural component. Together these resulted in an edited volume enhanced by color for all pictures, charts, and maps (Frison and Walker 2007). It was a generous and deeply appreciated gesture on the part of Mark Mullins. Without doubt MLC is one of the more significant sites in the Northwestern Plains–middle Rocky Mountains area. Several of my students started their careers there in 1973 as workers on the field crews, and many of them followed through and became professional and academic archaeologists. It is one of the major rock art sites in the area, which is dealt with in one part of the final report (Francis 2007). Francis developed into one of the authorities in rock art studies (Francis and Loendorf 2002) along with being appointed to the position of Wyoming state highway archaeologist. The junior editor of the final publication, Danny Walker, was able to utilize faunal materials from the site in his earlier master’s thesis (Walker 1979). Another contribution to the volume is the extensive survey of plant resources that was the basis of a master’s thesis by Maribeth Galvan (2007). Judson Finley, another UW anthropology student who went into geomorphology, wrote the geomorphology and sedimentation section (Finley 2007); he came into the project with the support of a small grant to take a fresh look at profiles in old trenches. Rick Weathermon (2007), who contributed a section on ground stone and historic trade beads, and Elizabeth Cartright (2007), who analyzed the Crow component, came into the project long after fieldwork was completed but made substantial contributions to the final publication. Mark Miller, the present Wyoming state archaeologist, did his first fieldwork at MLC, along with Mary Lou Larson, another of my students who is now a full professor of anthropology at UW. Several years after enough information appeared to fill some of the gaps in our understanding of the FMP and EPA, I took a fresh look at the materials from Pictograph Cave in Mulloy’s dissertation that he had assigned to his Early Middle Period and Late Middle Period and realized that some did closely resemble those from earlier contexts in more recent investigations. This prompted a trip to see the original materials stored at the University of Montana in Missoula, and I realized that there were many artifacts in the assemblage that, to me, closely resembled those from these

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heretofore unknown and unrecognized time periods. There is no intent here to in any way criticize the pioneering efforts of the early investigators; they simply lacked the necessary data base for different interpretations but laid the foundations for future research. In addition to observing the similarities of the artifacts, I was convinced that I could detect inconsistencies in the recording of the stratigraphy. My major incentive to reevaluate the Pictograph Cave assemblage was that I could not understand why the FMP and EPA were found at MLC and not at Pictograph Cave. The two sites were relatively close together, in a similar ecological area, and with no obvious barriers to restrict human population movements. In fact, one can stand on top of the bluff at Pictograph Cave and see the tops of the Pryor Mountains immediately north of the Bighorn Mountains not far from MLC.

Southsider Cave and the Laddie Creek Site About 12 miles southeast and at 7,600 feet — ​about 3,000 feet higher ele­ vation than MLC — ​is a site named Southsider Cave, named after the Southsider Cattlemen’s Association. It is located near the head of Laddie Creek on a steep, timber-covered, east-facing slope within about 100 meters of a two-track road near the bottom of a canyon. Besides being obscured by trees and brush, the opening was not visible to passersby because of a ridge of debris directly below the drip line and a steep descent to the floor. No one was aware of its presence until the middle 1960s, when an elk hunter stumbled into it during a late November blizzard. And as no one was aware of its presence, it was bypassed by artifact hunters. The cave did not appear to be an attractive place for human habitation; entering it required going over the ridge of debris and then descending about 3 feet (1 meter) to the floor. Lacking artificial lighting, we had to remove trees and brush to allow work inside, and after the sun went below the west rim of the canyon, work had to be postponed until the following morning. The top 18 inches (46 centimeters) of site deposits produced LPA, MPA, and EPA diagnostics, and the next 12 inches (30 centimeters) produced limited FMP diagnostics, all supported by radiocarbon dates. Stratigraphy was difficult to maintain because of soft, sandy deposits that resulted in some mixing of components. Four radiocarbon dates from about 7,700–5,400 years ago from fire pits in levels between 9 and 18 inches deep (23–46 centimeters) provided a record of well over 2,000 years of EPA occupation.

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Figure 8.5. Paint Rock V Rockshelter (top) and its Pryor Stemmed points (bottom, a–e) (bottom drawing by Connie Robinson).

The EPA levels produced a surprising amount of lithics along with a faunal assemblage of mid- and small-sized animals. There were no perishable materials, but a number of point bases could indicate the retrieval of foreshafts with broken points and their replacement with complete ones. A limited number of grinding stones could indicate some utilization of plant foods, and two cylindrical pits could have been for storage. For unknown reasons, there was no evidence of an LP or Early Historic use of the cave. The lowest level of another rockshelter site, Paint Rock V (Figure 8.5, top), located on the north side of Paint Rock Creek Canyon halfway between MLC and Southsider Cave, provided two radiocarbon dates of 8,100 and 8,300 rcybp on charcoal from fire hearths in a Pryor Stemmed level.

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The site assemblage provided a better understanding of the range of variation in Pryor Stemmed points (Figure 8.5a–d) and also produced solid evidence of special preparation of broken projectile points for burin-like tools (Figure 8.5e). In addition, a large assemblage of small tools was recovered (see Frison and Grey 1980:Figures 14–16). A radiocarbon date of over 4,700 rcybp from a fire hearth in a level with EPA side-notched projectile points, if correct, would be the youngest known date for that time period. The Laddie Creek site, located about 2 miles downstream from Southsider Cave in open country, demonstrates an accumulation of deposits, with several radiocarbon-dated cultural levels from about 6,800–5,700 rcybp. The evidence from these two sites essentially filled the EPA time gap in the MLC cultural sequence that was lost from land leveling by the landowner. Mary Lou Larson was able to use much of the Laddie Creek data for her doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara (Larson 1990). Mummy Cave, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of MLC in the Absaroka Mountains along the North Fork of the Shoshone River, contained stratified EPA cultural levels with diagnostic projectile points, tools, and radiocarbon dates similar to those from MLC (Husted and Edgar 2002). The report on Southsider Cave and other sites in the original MLC proposal will make up Medicine Lodge Creek Vol. 2, now ready for publication, and the remaining study and analysis of the Laddie Creek cultural assemblage are destined for Medicine Lodge Creek, Vol. 3.

The Lookingbill Site A stratified site around a large flowing spring at an elevation of 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) in the southern Absaroka Mountains provided more FMP and EPA evidence. While at a hunting camp in 1966, WAS members Art and Helen Lookingbill noticed flakes and artifacts eroding out of a dirt bank near a spring. Probing into the bank, they recovered two large, wellmade, side-notched projectile points different from any they were familiar with. Observing them at the annual WAS meeting in 1968, I wondered if they might date to the poorly known Altithermal Climatic Episode, which, even by this time, had limited radiocarbon-dated evidence of what would later be designated as the EPA. The Lookingbills agreed to take me to the location, but I was unable to do any more than become familiar with the area because elk and cattle had disturbed the wet soil around the location of the Lookingbills’ discovery.

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The site is in the Shoshone National Forest, and I applied for and was granted a permit for site testing. Two short visits to the site over the next two years produced good stratigraphic evidence of a cultural level with large side-notched points and a radiocarbon date of about 7,100 rcybp separated by a sterile level from an undated cultural level below with fishtail-shaped points with heavily ground edges toward the base, which I believed were of Late Paleoindian age. The site also produced a large chipped-stone tool assemblage; I named this the Helen Lookingbill site and felt that it was significant enough and I had information enough to submit a short article to a regional journal (Frison 1983). We soon learned that this location was well known to some local collectors who resented our intrusion into one of their most productive locations. We had covered our test excavations with plastic, but by the time we returned the following spring, this had been removed, and the underlying deposits, shoveled out. I decided that the site was important enough to seek funding for a major investigation. In 1990, with the help of Mary Lou Larson, by this time a part-time instructor in the UW Department of Anthropology, and Marcel Kornfeld and Eric Ingbar, who had completed M.A. degrees, I submitted a proposal to NSF, which was approved and provided us enough funding for a two-year project. Our predictions were well justified; the site produced stratified, radiocarbon-dated cultural levels from Paleoindian to LP age. Eight dates from 6,450 to 7,150 rcybp with diagnostic artifacts firmly established an EPA occupation. A surprising occurrence was a concentration of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) bones in one of the EPA levels where we expected to find mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis) remains (see Kornfeld et al. 2001). We were just starting fieldwork in 1991 when we had a visit by the Shoshone National Forest district ranger informing us that we might have to delay the project for a year. A wildlife group decided that the top of a nearly perpendicular bluff about 1,000 feet (340 meters) high northwest of the site would be the ideal location to attempt to establish a pair of peregrine falcons. The wildlife people complained that the noise from our activities might negatively affect the birds and asked the Forest Service to cancel our site activities for the year. That same day the wildlife group, and the falcons, arrived and set up their camp next to ours. Early the next morning we were rudely awakened by loud music from their boom boxes. There were no further objections raised to our presence by the wildlife group or the Shoshone National Forest ranger.

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We were able to hire a geologist, James ( Jim) Miller, to study the site-​ formation processes. From this time on, he became a regular member of our archaeological site investigations. Jim was trying to finish his Ph.D. dissertation in the Geology Department at UW. Unfortunately, a bad heart and war wounds from Vietnam finally caught up with him in 2011. Jim was a walking encyclopedia of the geological literature besides enthusiastically jumping at any chance to apply his expertise to any archaeological site we were investigating. We miss him very much.

Sites that Clarified the FMP, the EPA , and the MPA The results from the Helen Lookingbill site, Schiffer Cave, MLC, Paint Rock V, Southsider Cave, Laddie Creek, and other sites investigated under the MLC Project formed most of the basis for my suggesting FMP groups operating separately from the Plains Late Paleoindian and the progression from there to the EPA and then to the MPA. The artifact collectors destroyed much of another site known as Rice Cave close to the MLC area but somehow missed a small block of deposits that produced several EPA side-notched projectile points and a radiocarbon date of 5,100 rcybp. Further support for FMP came from Mummy Cave on the North Fork of the Shoshone River in the central Absaroka Mountains on the west side of the Bighorn Basin (Husted and Edgar 2002). In addition, the Lookingbill site produced evidence of a well-defined boundary between the FMP and the EPA in the higher elevations of the southern Absaroka Mountains. I am still unable to explain the abrupt change from the Late Paleoindian lanceolate and fishtailed points to the deep, sharp-cornered, side-notched points in the EPA. My own thinking is that the notches may have improved the means of attaching a stone point to a wooden shaft but also weakened the point and resulted in breakage across the notches. Had I been around at the time, I believe I would have suggested that they keep the lanceolate shape, but it appears that side and other forms of notching were favored and were here to stay.

‹9› Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies The North American Pronghorn Bison were unquestionably the dominant prehistoric food source on the short-grass plains of North America in prehistoric times, but in areas less endowed with good grass cover, another animal, the pronghorn (Antilo­ capra americana), was intensively hunted. A large part of western Wyoming is good pronghorn habitat. Shoshonean groups traditionally occupied the Great Basin and western Wyoming and devised various strategies of pronghorn procurement. Pronghorns are a much smaller animal than bison and demonstrate totally different behavior, so their procurement is also different. They are often referred to as “stinking goats” because of the strong smell the males acquire in the rutting season, giving the meat a bad flavor; however, the fossil record yields no evidence of a genetic connection to goats. Another bit of folklore is that pronghorns are better eaten in spring than at other times of the year. Just before WWII a spring pronghorn season was held in parts of Wyoming, but I could not detect any improvement in the flavor of the meat. In 1967, the newly formed Sweetwater Chapter of WAS started excavating a site north of Rock Springs, Wyoming, that produced large numbers of pronghorn bones, small bow-and-arrow projectile points, chipped- and ground-stone tools, and fire-fractured rock. Jack Krmpotich, a WAS member from Rock Springs, decided that they needed some professional advice, so in the spring of 1978, my student Charles Reher and I visited the scene of their site excavations.

The Eden-Farson Pronghorn Site The location of their investigations, the Eden-Farson site, is in a bowlshaped depression covered with tall, thick sagebrush on the lee side of a 161

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long, flat-topped ridge at the western edge of a large sand dune that lies along the western edge of the large Killpecker Sand Dune Field. Almost constant wind characterizes the area, and the site lay under sand from a few inches up to 3 feet deep. Further investigation demonstrated that the bone and artifact concentrations were in about 20 former lodges scattered in an area of about an acre (4,000 square meters). Of greatest interest is the quantity of pronghorn remains recovered in the former lodges. As was the case in bison bone beds, pronghorn butchering and meat processing usually left lower molar tooth rows intact, allowing close estimates of the seasonality of the event, along with animal age and sex. Even though the bases of most mandibles were broken open to retrieve the small amount of nutrients present there, the Eden-Farson site produced enough intact molar tooth rows for seasonality and population structure analysis (Nimmo 1971). The final count indicated that at least 212 pronghorns were killed at the Eden-Farson site during one year between late October and early November. Besides the mandibles there is a large sample of carcass elements that yielded evidence of systematic bone breakage and cut marks from butchering and processing. No evidence of a trap was located, although this number of animals taken at one time argues strongly that one was used. A strong possibility is that, given the same or similar conditions then as now, a trap could easily have been built from the tall sagebrush in the vicinity of the site. A radiocarbon date of 230 rcybp and the entire site assemblage are indicative of an LP Shoshonean hunting group. To date, the site is an anomaly since no other site of similar age or with such a large number of animals killed at one time has appeared in the general area (Frison 1971b). Consequently the Eden-Farson site pronghorn skeletal sample is in regular demand for taphonomic, bone breakage, and butchering analysis. In addition, these Shoshonean groups were unmatched in their bifacial reduction abilities, as seen in their manufacture of large biface tools, often using inferior raw stone flaking materials.

The Fort Bridger Pronghorn Trap A longtime resident of Fort Bridger in southwest Wyoming informed me of what he believed was a pronghorn trap in an isolated area several miles to the north of that small town. As I asked for directions, he picked up a stick and sketched out a crude map in the dirt that proved accurate enough to lead me to the location. He said that the trap was made of juniper trees



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and branches and that most of the larger trees had been removed by early settlers for firewood. However, enough remained to define its approximate 650-by-500-foot (200-by-150-meter) oval shape, with a 1,500-foot-long (450-meter) curving wing leading to an entrance on one side. Two other shorter fences were placed in strategic locations to keep the animals moving in the proper direction as they were herded toward the trap (Kornfeld et al. 2010:300–302). The top of a nearby rise provided a clear view of the entire complex and the strategy of its operation. The wing of the trap was placed across a narrow valley close to two playa lakes that attracted pronghorns, e­ specially after late summer rains rejuvenated vegetation around their perimeters. Animals being driven down the valley met the inside of the curving fence and were funneled into the oval-shaped trap. Based on observation of pronghorn behavior along with some ethnographic accounts and a lack of projectile points inside the enclosure, we believe that once inside the enclosure they were pursued by the hunters, who kept them moving around the inside of the fence until they collapsed from exhaustion and were easily dispatched, probably with clubs. A low brush fence will contain pronghorns but not a deer or a mountain sheep. Pronghorns are the fastest animal in North America, with distinctive behavior patterns that were well understood and exploited by Shoshonean hunters. At one end of the oval structure was a small, collapsed structure, most likely the location where the shaman performed his rituals. No historic items were found in or around the complex except for tin cans discarded by sheepherders and hunters. The age of the complex is probably Early Historic based on the deterioration of the wood used in construction. A final thought is that, to me, operation of the trap complex correlates well with pronghorn behavior. There were other rumors at that time of a similar but smaller trap made of sagebrush in a different valley, but I could find no evidence of its former presence.

More on Pronghorn Traps Not surprisingly, Julian Steward’s (1938) accounts of Shoshonean pronghorn trapping in the Great Basin fit well with the evidence I was finding in the Wyoming area since we were both dealing with the same Shoshonean cultural groups. I became acquainted with Phil Wilkie of the University of California, Riverside, who was interested in pronghorn-procurement sites

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in the area of east-central California and west-central Nevada. This led to an invitation to present a program on animal procurement at Riverside and at the same time make a visit with several students and other interested individuals to a probable pronghorn trap in that area. The weather was mild upon arrival, and we camped out on a sagebrush flat alongside the trap we were to visit. To me, the topography and vegetation indicated good pronghorn habitat. The configuration of the procurement complex left little doubt that it was designed for trapping pronghorns. Another trapping complex in a nearby area of rocks and timber was entirely different and was probably for trapping feral horses, which, according to some historic accounts, were used to feed miners in the nearby area. We were scheduled to look at another site the following day, but the weather changed abruptly in the middle of the night, and we awoke to a blizzard the next morning, forcing us to break camp as soon as possible and get to a lower elevation. The weather improved by the time we reached Bishop, California, and we enjoyed a good trip through the Owens River valley. I remember well a museum at the town of Independence, California, that had good displays of Shoshoni artifacts. I remember best a well-­ preserved rabbit skin blanket, presumably the same as those mentioned in Steward (1938:45) that were used in trade. In 1991, June and I spent part of the winter at the SI in Washington, D.C., and were able to analyze material from Birdshead Cave in northern Wyoming (Bliss 1950) that included what I thought were likely parts of a rabbit skin blanket similar to the one at the museum in Independence.

Mountain Sheep In summer 1971, I was able to meet with a game warden, Kay Bowles, in Dubois, Wyoming, who suggested that I should follow up on a report of a wooden structure in an isolated and rarely visited location on the western side of the Absaroka Mountains. Bowles marked the site location on a Shoshone National Forest map; it was a long hike, and I did not have access to a horse, so I knew that I would have to plan on a dry camp for the coming night. The next morning I found the wooden structure in scattered timber at the bottom of an arroyo at an elevation of about 8,500 feet (2,590 meters). It consisted of a rectangular-shaped enclosure about 15 feet (5 meters) long, 6 feet (2 meters) wide, and 5 feet (1.6 meters) high (Figure 9.1). It was constructed of horizontally laid, dead pine trees up to a foot in diameter, some



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 165

Figure 9.1. Mountain sheep trap in an arroyo bottom in northwest Wyoming.

with roots attached, which aided in binding the structure together. A ramp at the upper end was connected to converging drive line fences that in turn were connected to one end of a corral farther upslope in thicker timber. Long wooden fences formed a V that extended outward and came together at the other end of the corral. Near the upper end of the corral was a pile of several shorter poles that could have been a structure for the shaman in charge of calling the animals. I was convinced that it was a mountain sheep–trapping complex, and the riddle of the log structure Roy Coleman and I had seen previously (Figure 5.2) was suddenly and unexpectedly solved. The photograph taken at that time even shows the ramp on one end, which we failed to notice then. Later on, four more similar features were found in the same area as the one in Figures 9.1 and 9.2, and I was even more convinced that they were sheep traps, but we needed better confirmation. Ned Frost of Cody, Wyoming, was one of the best-recognized big-game outfitters in northwest Wyoming, especially for his success with mountain sheep hunters. Since my own experience with mountain sheep was limited I decided to attempt to pick his brain and get a better handle on mountain sheep behavior. Mr. Frost’s interest in these animals was sending his clients home with trophy ram heads that would rank high on the Boone and Crockett ranking system, but he

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Figure 9.2. Mountain sheep trap in open flat country in northwest Wyoming.

was intrigued with my descriptions of the possible traps. Although his age no longer allowed him to easily negotiate rough terrain at higher altitudes where most of the traps were located, he said that we could try to visit one we knew that required only a short climb. The trap we managed to access was at the top of a steep incline that ended abruptly at relatively flat, open country with a few scattered trees (Figure 9.2). It was nearly complete, with most of the larger trees used in construction somewhat rotted but still intact. The remaining part of the structure was about 6 feet (2 meters) high, and a sloping ramp on one end was connected to a drive lane that was in turn connected to a corral. One end of a wooden fence was connected to an opening in the corral, and the other end was obscured by a timber patch several hundred meters in the distance. In this case we could clearly see that the entire length of the ramp was camouflaged by dirt and rocks, presumably to make it appear to be an extension of the ground surface. After careful study of the area, Frost conceded that it was very likely a sheep trap designed for nursery herds but not the mature rams his clients were seeking. He pointed to a nearby bare ridge that he was familiar with from his earlier travels in the area. It was a sheep bed-ground and one likely source for the animals, which, when disturbed, would move downhill until they met the fence, which would funnel them into the corral and finally up



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 167

the ramp with no alternative but to go into the catch pen. A lack of arrows or spears in or around any of the catch pens suggests that the hunters were using clubs to dispatch the animals. A carved wooden shaft wrapped with hide about the same size and shape as a baseball bat at one catch pen and a large elk antler beam with a shortened and sharpened brow tine at another support the use of clubs. Considering the pandemonium in the catch pen, killing the animals with arrows and/or spears would have been a serious threat to the hunters. A corral pole was embedded in the forks of a dead tree at one trap location (Figure 9.1), and at the one described above (Figure 9.2), a living tree is present in the catch pen. This inspired Charles Reher to attempt to use tree rings to determine an approximate date for their construction and use. In the first instance, rings from the dead tree were correlated with rings in a living tree and indicated that the pole was placed in the dead tree about ad 1790. Growth rings from the living tree in the other catch pen indicated that it started to grow at about the same time, and both results appear reasonable in light of the deterioration of the larger logs used in construction. The continuously changing character of the mountain sheep habitat area required each of the trapping complexes to be placed on a different landform. The hunters had to be familiar enough with the animals’ behavior to observe the landscape and predict trapping locations. That they were successful is demonstrated by the number of traps that, although different in some ways, operated by concentrating the animals in a corral and forcing them up a ramp camouflaged to appear as the land surface. From there, their only alternative was to jump into a catch pen from which there was no escape, except to be taken out by the hunters. Another phenomenon in the sheep-trapping area consists of large ram skulls placed in the forks of live trees, and in several instances subsequent tree growth partially embedded them in the wood (Figure 9.3). The foramen magnum in some was broken and enlarged, which could point to a practice analogous to the ritual activity expressed in opening the brain cases of bison to release the animal spirits. Several of these have been recorded, but they were regarded as rare collectibles and were cut from the trees and taken to private homes or placed in local museums. Small carved bone items and glass trade beads recovered at the bases of two of the trees containing ram skulls may have been ritually placed items. All together, these mountain sheep–trapping features represent part of Early Historic and possibly also LP foothill–mountain archaeology (see Kornfeld et al. 2010:304–312).

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Figure 9.3. Mountain sheep skull found in the fork of a lodgepole pine tree in northwest Wyoming.

A major consideration, based on the number of these traps in a relatively small area, is a reliable source of animals needed to justify the efforts expended in trap construction. There is some evidence to support large numbers of mountain sheep in the area in both the early and late nineteenth century. Osborne Russell (1921:26) claimed large numbers during his travels in the Yellowstone area from 1834 to 1843. John D. Woodruff is believed to have built the first dwelling of a white person in the Bighorn Basin at the southeast end of the Absaroka Mountains about 1871, in the immediate vicinity of several recorded sheep traps (see P. Frison 1975:​ 52–58). While my uncle Paul Frison was visiting J. D. Woodruff one time shortly before he died, the subject of mountain sheep came up, and my



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 169

uncle claimed that Woodruff told him that anytime they needed meat, they would hitch up a team, drive along the base of the mountain a short distance, and shoot whatever number of sheep they wanted, which would nearly always roll down the slope where they could easily load them up and head for home. The reliability of Woodruff ’s statement might be questioned, but he was regarded as a person of high integrity.

Trapping Mountain Sheep in Nets Sheep Mountain in northwest Wyoming covers an extremely rough area of about 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) and lies at the confluence of the North and South forks of the Shoshone River that forms the Buffalo Bill artificial reservoir. The mountain rises about 2,500 feet (760 meters) above the river level and was named for the numbers of mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis) that wintered there in early historic times and to a lesser extent at present. Hikers stopping to rest under an overhanging rim on the north side of the mountain noticed a pack rat (Neotoma cineria) midden in a secluded niche at the rear of the overhang. Investigating further, they uncovered what appeared to be a mass of twisted cordage. They carried it off the mountain and showed it to Robert Edgar in Cody, who maintained an array of historic buildings salvaged from around the area and utilized some of them to display a myriad of local historic and prehistoric items. No one has a more intimate knowledge of the Absaroka Mountains and the historic and prehistoric materials left behind than Edgar, and ­people are continually bringing him items to identify. He did not think the mass of cordage was of modern-day origin, but the finders lost interest and left it to Edgar, who put it on display in one of his buildings. I spotted it the next time I came by and remarked that it looked like several coils of twisted cordage. However, a closer inspection revealed two-strand twisted cordage of different diameters, and I suddenly realized that it was probably some sort of net. It was too fragile to withstand further inspection without damage, so Edgar allowed me to take it to UW for further analysis. Two peeled hardwood sticks, which we believe were use-related, were incorporated into the cordage bundle (Figure 9.4); one was charred on one end and provided enough charcoal to provide a date of 8,860 rcybp. We knew at this point that we lacked the expertise to proceed further, so I contacted Dr. James Adovasio at the University of Pittsburg, who expressed immediate interest in a detailed analysis. I hand-carried it to his

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Figure 9.4. 8,200-year-old animal-trapping net made of two-strand twisted Juniperus sp. bark.

laboratory, where he was unable to stabilize it. It was about 165–210 feet (50–65 meters) long and 4.8–6.5 feet (1.5–2.0 meters) high and may contain as much as a mile (1.6 kilometers) of two-strand twisted juniper bark cordage. Mesh gauge varies from about .71 centimeters to 3.01 centimeters; it had been stored and undoubtedly was intended for future use, most likely for netting the resident mountain sheep herd because no other animals of similar size frequent the area. I would argue that the net (see Frison et al. 1986) would have been placed at right angles to a well-traveled route and as the animals were chased into and tangled in the net, they were killed with clubs. A sad note is that Robert Edgar passed away in 2012. The feasibility of net-trapping mountain sheep can be demonstrated by actual experiment. A mountain sheep herd of about 1,000 is maintained by the WGF just outside of Dubois in an area known as Whiskey Mountain. It is a healthy herd, and to maintain its size and protect the available forage, surplus animals are trapped and moved to areas where mountain sheep had been eliminated earlier. Trapping is done in late fall and early winter; bait, such as cured, bright green alfalfa leaves, is placed under a remotely controlled drop net, which is released when the desired number is under the net. Because mountain sheep are relatively delicate and easily incapacitated, animals under the net are immediately and carefully restrained (Figure 9.5)



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Figure 9.5. Mountain sheep restrained under a drop net.

to prevent injury until placed in a padded and darkened cage for transport to their new homes. The WGF management does not encourage curious onlookers at sheep-trapping events because they can unwittingly disrupt the operations. Fortunately, the same game warden, Kay Bowles, who had earlier directed me to the prehistoric sheep-trapping complex, was coordinating the day’s trapping event and told me to get in the truck used to transport captured animals and keep out of sight. He placed the truck so that I could observe the entire operation. The first attempt fizzled out because a wise old ewe sensed something was amiss and enticed the others away. Later in the day with another herd and a fresh bait of green alfalfa leaves, about 20 animals crowded under the net, and it was released. They struggled under the net, but most quieted down and seemed resigned to their fate. It was a revealing demonstration of mountain sheep behavior; deer and pronghorns would have struggled violently in the same situation. We can now demonstrate two strategies of successful prehistoric mountain sheep procurement based on a thorough understanding of animal behavior. One is with the use of nets, and the other is by first herding them into corrals and then forcing them up ramps into catch pens. These methods would not have been successful with deer or pronghorns.

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A Wintertime Deer Procurement at Dead Indian Creek The Sunlight Basin is a relatively small basin within the Absaroka Mountains in northwest Wyoming. Its western extent is close to the Yellowstone Plateau and YNP. Access requires a steep climb to a mountain divide and an equally steep descent into the basin. This is the same area mentioned earlier where Roy Coleman guided me to his grizzly bear stand and, at that time, an unidentified mountain sheep trap. The Cody Chapter of the WAS became active by 1969 and began excavation at a site along Dead Indian Creek at the bottom of the steep descent into Sunlight Basin. It proved to be unusually rich in terms of artifacts, with an MPA age of over 4,000 rcybp. The excavators encountered a large mule deer skull plate with antlers nearly intact buried under about a meter of soil, and at this point they decided to call me for advice. I helped them expose the remainder of the skull, which today would rank high on the record of the Boone and Crockett Club. Expanding the excavation exposed more male skull plates with antlers that appeared to have been placed to form a deliberate pattern. One had been placed in a depression atop a mound composed of dirt and small, rounded cobbles, and we concluded that it was related to ritual activity involving deer procurement. Further excavation produced a large chipped-stone and faunal assemblage along with some probable seed-grinding manos and metates. We named this the Dead Indian Creek site. We expanded our excavations the following year, and a profile at a right angle to the creek revealed a feature we could not readily identify and finally wrote off as an old creek channel. By this time, the site had yielded a sizable assemblage, and because we lacked the time to do a detailed analysis, it was stored for later study. A close look at the materials over a decade later revealed adequate mule deer remains to perform a taphonomic analysis. With careful guidance, a student, Tana Simpson (1984), determined that the mule deer were killed throughout the winter months, a strong indication of individual or small hunting groups and not a large communal hunt involving a trap. This is not surprising, because it is still a favorable deer-​ wintering area. After we examined our photos, the profile we thought might have been an abandoned river channel (Figure 9.6) made us realize how little we knew about archaeology and geoarchaeology at the time. During the interim between excavation and analysis, pithouses had been added to the



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 173

Figure 9.6. Middle Plains Archaic–age pithouse at the Dead Indian Creek site in the Sunlight Basin of northwest Wyoming.

list of features found in habitation sites during the Plains Archaic time periods between about 8,000 and 2,500 years ago, and the one at Dead Indian Creek is an outstanding example. We had failed to identify obvious fire pit features in the original profile and at the bottom of the excavation that would have immediately ruled out the possibility of a stream channel. It was fortunate that we delayed site study for a decade (see Frison and Walker 1984), but it is a clear statement on our knowledge of plains–­ mountain prehistory and geoarchaeology in 1969.

Avonlea in Wyoming The LP period is characterized by the appearance of smaller projectile points believed to indicate the bow and arrow replacing the atlatl and dart of the LPA, as recorded at the Ruby and Muddy Creek bison kill sites. The name Avonlea comes from a site in Saskatchewan (Kehoe and McCorquodale 1961), and relationships between sites with Avonlea-like diagnostics farther south in Montana and Wyoming are, as yet, unclear (see Davis 1988). However, the Beehive Butte site located on the rim of a deep canyon (Figure 9.7, top) close to the MLC site produced a large number of small, but exceptionally well-made, projectile points (Figure 9.8a, e), along

Figure 9.7. Beehive Butte site (top) and a large slab-lined fire pit in the Avonlea cultural level (bottom).



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Figure 9.8. Projectile points from the Avonlea component at the Beehive Butte site (a–e) and from a component of similar age at Medicine Lodge Creek (f–j).

with a large assemblage of flaked-stone, ground-stone, and bone tools and bone and shell decorative items (see Frison 1988). Identifiable skeletal material in the faunal assemblage produced MNIs of three mountain sheep, four mule deer, five bison, and 28 cottontail rabbits. The dominant feature at the Beehive Butte site was a large fire pit lined with thick stone slabs (Figure 9.7, bottom), and the floor around it was almost a solid pavement of heat-fractured rock resulting from continual cleaning of the pit. Dates on this pit and another from inside a burned lodge are at 1,400 rcybp. A similar feature appeared at MLC with a date of 1,360 rcybp (Frison 2007b:Figures 4.15–4.16), suggesting a close relationship between the two. However, there is enough difference in the morphology of the projectile points from the MLC assemblage (Figure 9.8f–j) and those from Beehive to question the actual relationship.

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What we designate as Avonlea in the northern Wyoming area is characterized by a preference for sites on exposed areas, on and alongside buttes, and hunting small, medium-size, and large mammals. Analysis of the Beehive site and two butte-top sites in the MLC area is complete and ready for publication in the forthcoming volume 2 of the MLC project. These buttetop sites are in locations difficult to access, but the occupants were able to transport parts, at least, of bison, deer, and mountain sheep to these sites. This manifestation also extends well into southern Montana (see Fredlund 1988). The Irvine site along the North Platte River in southeast Wyoming appears as an isolate of this possible Avonlea occupation (Duguid 1968). This site yielded an exceptionally rich cultural assemblage, but most was lost to collectors.

Elk Except for antlers and antler parts modified into tools and possibly ornaments, elk (Cervus elaphus) remains are rare in Plains and Rocky Mountain archaeological sites. The exception is during the historic time periods. This is hard to understand because they are not difficult to procure and provide significant amounts of high-quality meat products. In addition, elk hide is tough and unmatched for long-wearing garments. In my own cultural experience, elk hide chaps were highly valued for ideal protection while riding in brushy country, and an elk hide coat, if properly treated, could be expected to last a lifetime. To me, unless we have misread the archaeological record, the presence of elk antlers and the scarcity of elk faunal remains in sites remain a problem difficult to explain. The Folsom level at the AB site produced several elk antler artifacts, mentioned earlier; one is what we believe is a punch (Figure 7.2a–b) used in association with pressure to remove flutes from a carefully prepared Folsom preform. The artifact was recovered in close proximity to channel flakes and preforms that broke in the fluting process. In the kill site area were one complete projectile point and a broken one first thought to be made of bone but later proved to be of elk antler (Frison and Zeimens 1980), similar to one recovered at the Lindenmeier Folsom site in Colorado. A long strip from the main beam of an elk antler was too badly deteriorated to make a further interpretation as to its intended use or purpose. From the AB cultural component bone bed came the modified tip of an elk antler tine that was of the right shape for an atlatl hook (Frison and Craig 1982:Figure 2.109b).



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 177

High-quality stone flaking material is found in a Bighorn Mountain stone quarry known as Spanish Point at an elevation of 8,200 feet (2,500 meters). The chert material occurs in nodules of different sizes and shapes and with thick outside desilicification rinds and a wide variation of inside colors. The nodules occur in a relatively soft matrix, an occurrence still poorly understood geologically, that was loosened with an array of elk antler and bone digging tools. Charcoal from the bottom of one quarry pit yielded a date of over 6,000 rcybp, or EPA age. More on this and other tool stone quarries will be presented later. In the western part of the Laramie Basin in southeast Wyoming is an elk kill of at least 20 animals and a processing area radiocarbon dated at 1,500–1,700 rcybp, or LPA age (see Kornfeld et al. 2010:334–335). Other than the above, the LP and Historic periods provide the majority of evi­ dence of elk. One would expect that elk would have been a major food source at MLC, but there is no supporting skeletal evidence. However, there is a large petroglyph of what is presumably an elk deeply incised into the sandstone wall above the site, and the arrows with feathered shafts entering the body suggest an LP or Early Historic age (Francis 2007:Figure 9.7). Elk antler use increased among Native Americans with the introduction of the horse and metal tools. Elk antler was often incorporated into the frames of the historic woman’s saddle or squaw saddle, the handle of one type of fleshing tool with a metal or stone bit, and quirt handles. I know of at least one bow made from a large elk antler, but there is no evidence that it approached the quality or popularity of a mountain sheep horn bow. My final thought on elk is that it is difficult to explain the use of their antlers as tools extending back to Folsom times beside very little evidence of their use as a food source.

Snares Certain rodents were used as food items; in the late 1950s, artifact collectors found a cache of more than 100 snares in a dry cave in the Flaming Gorge area of the Green River in southern Wyoming. From their size and morphology (Figure 9.9), they were probably used to trap wood rats (Neotoma cineria), known to be an important food item among the Shoshoni Indians in the Great Basin (Steward 1938). A large bone midden containing pack rats and other rodents believed to be cultural and of late Paleoindian age was recovered at MLC. The seasonality of the pack rats’ death at MLC was determined through analysis of tooth eruption (Walker 2007:187). They are

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Figure 9.9. Small animal snare, one of more than 100 found in a dry cave in southwest Wyoming.

nocturnal animals, so few people have seen one, but an understanding of their behavior is necessary for a successful procurement strategy. According to White (1953b:398), a pack rat should yield about .7 pounds (.32 kilograms) of meat. This does not sound like much, but by continually moving trapping locations, a steady supply of meat was possible. As mentioned earlier, porcupines were unwelcome at any time or place where they could come into contact with domestic animals or pets. They were easy to kill and regarded as the last possible choice of food to avoid starvation. While I was in high school, curiosity tempted me to test this bit of folklore; the results pretty much confirmed these claims. On the other hand, Gilbert Wilson quotes his Hidatsa informant claiming that broiled porcupine was “very good, quite fat and very tasty” (Wilson 1924:303). An as-yet-unpublished report on Carter Cave, another site investigated under the MLC project, demonstrates that the skeletal remains of several marmots or whistle-pigs (Marmota flaviventris) were systematically broken, suggesting that they were being prepared as food. Referring one more time to my ranching days, marmots were plentiful but never eaten. However, before they hibernated for the cold months, they acquired quantities of fat that was often rendered and used as an excellent conditioner for saddles, chaps, harnesses, and other leather goods.



Prehistoric Non-Bison Animal-Procurement Strategies 179

The Chronological and Geographical Record Earlier chapters briefly discuss most of the archaeological sites I have been seriously involved in, mostly as a professional archaeologist and some while I was still a collector. I believe that the information derived from them has helped significantly in establishing a Northwestern Plains and a central Rocky Mountains cultural chronology (Figure 9.10). These sites are spread across most of Wyoming, a small part of Montana, and an even smaller part of Colorado (Figure 9.11). The chronologic picture is far from being cast in stone and will certainly undergo change as new data appear. The chronology data are based mainly on radiocarbon dates. It is well recognized that radiocarbon and actual dates do not correlate, and correction must be made to obtain the calendar age (Table 9.1). These correlations are based on calculations by Stuiver and Reimer (1993).

Figure 9.10. Suggested chronology for the Northwestern Plains and central Rocky Mountains.

Figure 9.11. Geographic coverage of several of the author’s archaeological sites: (1) Agate Basin* 48NO201 and Sheaman 48NO211; (2) Casper 48NA304; (3) Colby 48WA322; (4) Carter/Kerr-McGee 48CA12; (5) Dead Indian Creek 48PA551; (6) Eden-Farson 48SW304; (7) Finley* 48SW5 and Krmpotich 48SW9826; (8) Glenrock 48CO304; (9) Hanson 48BH329; (10) Hawken 48CK303; (11) Hell Gap* 48GO305; (12) Horner* 48PA29; (13) Kobold 24BH406; (14) Leigh Cave 48WA304 and Carter Cave 48WA365; (15) Lookingbill 48FR308; (16) McKean* 48CK7; (17) Medicine Lodge Creek 48BH499, Paint Rock V 48BH349, Laddie Creek 48BH345, Beehive Butte 48BH346, and Southsider Cave 48BH363; (18) Mill Iron 24CT30; (19) Muddy Creek 48CR324; (20) Piney Creek 48JO311; (21) Ruby 48CA302; (22) Schiffer Cave 48JO319; (23) Spring Creek Cave 48WA1; (24) Upper Twin Mountain 5GA1513; (25) Vore 48CK302; (26) Wardell 48SU301. * indicates a second investigation.

Table 9.1. Comparison of calibrated calendar years before the present and bc/ad with uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present. Radiocarbon Years Before Present 12,000 11,500 11,000 10,500 10,000 9,500 9,000 8,500

8,000

7,500

7,000

Calibrated Calendar Year Date Range

11,967–11,841 bc 11,967–11,841 bc 11,440–11,340 bc 10,679–10,443 bc 9656–9387 bc 9117–8729 bc 8286–8024 bc 7583–7534 bc 7048–6828 bc

6433–6354 bc

Calibrated Calendar Year Date Range Before the Present 13,916–13,790 13,389–13,289 12,960–12,877 12,628–12,392 11,695–11,336 11,066–10,678 10,235–9973 9532–9483 8997–8777

8382–8215

5980–5838 bc

7929–7787

6,000

4950–4805 bc

6899–6754

5,000

3793–3757 bc

5875–5656

6,500

5,500

4,500

5515–5464 bc

4444–4296 bc

7829–7464

6393–6218

3338–3103 bc

5287–5052

3,500

1885–1757 bc

3834–3706

2,500

7700–541 bc

2719–2490

4,000

3,000

2,000 1,500 1,000

500

2573–2471 bc

1370–1131 bc

ad 48–60

ad 470–635

ad 987–1150

ad 1334–1448

4522–4420

3319–3080 1997–1890 1480–1315 963–800 616–502

‹ 10 › Foreign Travels and Other International Activities

South America After several years of teaching and fieldwork at UW, June and I realized that we had passed the age of 50 years and if we were ever going to pursue our earlier dreams of world travel, it was time to act. Consequently, we decided to sacrifice most of our little nest egg and schedule a trip to a different continent. We were in agreement that we wanted to visit places that attracted tourists but were also places of archaeological interest. Bill Mulloy was spending much of his time on Easter Island, and as a special event for his family, on a return trip from there they took time to visit the Peruvian site of Machu Picchu, not far from Cuzco. Mulloy said that it was probably the most inspiring place he had ever seen in his travels, so we decided to make this and other sites in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia the destinations for our first major foreign trip. Our plane landed in Lima, Peru, on Christmas Eve 1976, and we were scheduled to fly to Cuzco on Christmas day, but the weather did not cooperate, and we had to fly over Cuzco and return to our hotel in Lima. It was a different Christmas from any we had ever experienced, but the weather improved overnight, and we landed in Cuzco just before noon. We were scheduled to board the train for Machu Picchu the following morning, and with a half day to tour Cuzco, we hired a guide to take us to the fortress of Sacsayhuaman overlooking the city. We were impressed with the different sizes of the stones and the exact way they fit to each other. I even took the blade of my pocketknife and tried to insert it between the joints without success. The Peruvians had obviously mastered the art of stonework very efficiently, but it was quite different from that of the Aztecs and Maya. 183

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The trip to Machu Picchu involved a train ride of about 100 kilometers from Cuzco along the Urubamba River and then a bus ride up a road with a series of hairpin curves to the actual site. My earlier experience with agri­ culture was with flat fields in open spaces, and the effort required to build terraces on steep slopes to acquire flat land to raise crops was impressive. We had to admit that it was an impressive site and well worth the trip. I climbed the mountain adjacent to the site and was quite proud of the effort until I was informed that a 75-year-old caretaker at the site could beat my climbing time by several minutes. Looking at his barrel-shaped chest, I could see that he was better acclimated to high altitudes than I. The return trip to Cuzco was uneventful, but we were dead tired and slept most of the way. The next morning we boarded a train for the trip to Lake Titicaca. Our guide strongly suggested that we sit opposite each other next to a window. It was a good suggestion; many of the other passengers boarded with sacks of potatoes, live chickens, and an occasional live sheep slung over their shoulders, which crowded those sitting in the center seats. In addition, we were able to see the fields of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), the major grain crop of the high Andes, and potatoes (Solanum spp.), of which there are several species. We were transferred to another train with overnight sleeping quarters, abominable food, and a healthy population of bedbugs. The next night we were at a hotel on the shore of Lake Titicaca, where June suffered a bout of acute altitude sickness. The hotel manager brought oxygen and a drink made with coca leaves (Erythroxylon coca) that brought her back to normal within a few hours. She swears that this was her first and only experience with drugs. The next day we boarded a plane for the high-altitude airport at La Paz, Bolivia, and as soon as the plane doors opened, attendants came aboard with oxygen for several passengers. The following day we hired a guide to take us to the site of Tiahuanaco. This was during the period that Erich Von Daniken advocated prehistoric space travel and suggested that one of the stone carvings at this site was a man in a space suit and that a nearby flat area was a launching platform. Our guide had been well brainwashed with these claims and expressed disappointment when we refused to concur. Our last stop in South America was in Bogotá, Colombia, where we visited several local tourist attractions including the Gold Museum. We noticed a large poster advertising a bullfight and decided to attend. An attendant literally forged a path for us through the seated audience and

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placed us immediately above the entrance where live animals entered and dead animals were dragged from the arena. The crowd seemed pleased at the end of the day, but we both agreed that it was a barbaric way to kill animals. After all these experiences we were glad to return home.

Egypt In December 1980, we were finishing our year at the Smithsonian and on the spur of the moment decided to join a tour to Egypt. We called the geologist John Albanese and his wife, Evelyn, in Casper, Wyoming, and they decided to be included. We joined the rest of the tour group in London and flew to Cairo, Egypt, arriving just at daybreak. The tour group was transported to a hotel with the pyramids visible in the distance. The tour director suggested that we rest after a long night flight, but June and I decided that we would rather forget a nap and walk to the pyramids. Along the way we saw a place that rented camels, which we were able to ride around the pyramids and the Sphinx. Except for us, the area was deserted, and we really enjoyed our venture except that we would have gladly traded camels for good saddle horses. As we returned to our hotel, we received sour looks from the tour director and several members of the tour group. We gradually worked our way up the Nile River and stopped at the major tourist attractions. We enjoyed them most by getting away from the tour group and avoiding the nightly sound and light extravaganzas with dramatic overtures by Charlton Heston that attracted large audiences. We got more sour looks from the tour group when I insisted on stopping the tour bus and inspecting the ingenious but primitive systems employed to lift irrigation water from the Nile River. Our last stop in Egypt was the Museum of Cairo, which displayed the immense number of items from King Tut’s burial tomb. In retrospect, it was a good trip, but June and I decided not to travel with large tour groups in the future. Flying back to London, the weather was clear, and we were treated to a good view of the Alps.

Russia In 1981, I learned that the XI International Union for Quaternary Research Congress was to assemble in Moscow, USSR, during the summer of 1982. June and I discussed making the trip but were apprehensive about visiting Russia during the Cold War period. At this time, Larry Todd, one of

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my earlier students, was finishing his doctoral work at the University of New Mexico. He was analyzing the bison remains from the Horner Paleo­ indian bison kill site at Cody, Wyoming (described earlier), combined with obser­vations on the short-term deterioration of domestic cow (Bos taurus) carcasses and how some of this might be applied to the analysis of prehistoric bison bone beds. Larry convinced me that we should attend the Moscow meeting and present papers on our Paleoindian sites and studies. Our ­papers were among those selected for publication (in Russian) by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Frison 1986). It is still a strange feeling to look at my article printed in a language with which I am totally unfamiliar. The 1982 experience was interesting to say the least. The American contingent, of about 40 people, wanted to convene a meeting at the beginning of the formal presentations, but we were refused with the strange and obscure excuse that they did not want that many Americans together in one room. There were other obviously arbitrary decisions; stairways and passageways were suddenly blocked, and doors were barred. A woman with a background in mammoth studies contacted five of us for a trip through her laboratory containing mammoth remains we were interested in studying but was suddenly stopped as she unlocked her door. She was visibly surprised and distressed at this turn of events but went into the laboratory, picked out several scraps of mammoth hide with hair attached, and presented one to each of us. We knew that she was trying to convey to us that the dislike and distrust did not exist at this level. I was hoping to be able to travel to Leningrad, later renamed Saint Petersburg, visit the Zoological Museum, and see some of the mammoth remains recovered from ice and permafrost contexts. June and I were able to board the train, the Red Arrow, for an overnight ride to Leningrad. We were restricted to our compartment the entire trip and immediately upon our arrival were placed in a cab and informed that the Zoological Museum was off limits and instead were taken for a conducted tour of the Hermitage. The art exhibits there were interesting, but I was disappointed at not being allowed to see the Zoological Museum. Upon our return to Moscow, we were able to join a group tour to a park with a herd of European bison. They are similar to the North American bison but lack the prominent hump of the latter. However, this was a poor substitute for a visit to see mammoth remains at the Zoological Museum in Leningrad. The American contingent was finally able to get together for a meeting at the American embassy. We could not travel to the embassy as a group but

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had to split up into small groups with tight surveillance the entire distance. Even then, several members of the group had to bluff their way through the Russian guards to get to the embassy entrance. However, at this time June and I had embossed cards for an airline club that impressed the Russian guards, and we were waved through the gate. The embassy personnel complained of continual harassment when traveling outside the embassy and looked forward to different assignments. By this time, we had experienced enough of Russia and the Cold War, and when our plane cleared the runway after the meetings, there were expressions of joy and clapping of hands. I was pleased to have a window seat during the plane ride home because it took us over Greenland with a clear view of the ice cap.

France and Spain There were archaeological collections at the SI other than the one from AB I had analyzed in 1980 and published in 1982 that I wanted to study. These collections were from Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska, and I received a stipend from the SI to spend four months there for that purpose. In January 1991, I was asked by the Society for California Archaeology to be the keynote speaker at its annual meeting banquet in Sacramento in March 1991. I informed them that I would be in Washington, D.C., but they agreed to pay all expenses, so June and I accepted their invitation. June always had the rare ability to connect with strangers, and at the society banquet, she struck up a conversation with David Abrams, who was familiar with and took small guided tours to Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic sites in France and Spain. I taught a course in Old World archaeology every other year that was heavily oriented to Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic sites in France and knew that actual contact would add more substance to a classroom teaching situation than relying on printed materials. Abrams was interested and later sent us a proposed itinerary and estimated cost. June and I seriously discussed the proposal and decided to accept his offer. We especially wanted to see the cave paintings in Lascaux, and aware that the number of visitors to the site was severely restricted, Abrams gave me the address of the person to contact for permission to gain access to the site. The geologist J. Albanese and one of the WAS members along with their spouses were invited to accompany us on the trip. The letter granting permission to enter Lascaux finally came, and at exactly the specified day,

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hour, and minute, our French guide appeared with a key to the entrance. We were supposed to be limited to six persons; however, two outstanding young women from California were also booked on the tour, and after a wide-eyed glance, the French guide could not refuse their pleas to be included. Needless to say, we were impressed with the paintings, and we stayed in the area long enough to see several other cave sites including Les Combarelles and Font de Gaume. The sculptured horses at Cap Blanc were especially interesting to a couple familiar with their modern counterparts. The stratigraphy at the Upper Paleolithic site of Laugerie Haute was especially impressive after excavating North American Paleoindian sites with thin and relatively unproductive cultural levels. A year or so afterward, I was reading Mary Leakey’s account of her experience when she was living in Les Eyzies for a short time. M. Perony, the French archaeologist, was excavating at Laugerie Haute, and as buckets of material were brought to him from the excavations “he simply picked out those pieces that could easily be seen and tipped the rest down the bank towards the Vezere, for the river to dispose of in due course.” And they could, “with M. Perony’s apparent acceptance, search through his spoil heaps and find rich treasure, treasure we could take home and keep” (Leakey 1984:25). Artifact collectors today can only read this and salivate as they visualize the water transporting Upper Paleolithic flint blades, bone points, and other artifacts down the river. My former professor at UM, Art Jelinek, was excavating at La Quina, a site in the area, that summer, and we were able to pay him an unexpected and enjoyable visit. The itinerary included several other Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic sites and museum collections in that area. Traveling through other parts of France, we saw fields of blooming poppies and were reminded of Flanders Field and World War I. From France we entered Spain and, after a detour through the Pyrenees Mountains, arrived at Altimira, where I learned that an acquaintance, Les Freeman, from the University of Chicago was excavating nearby. We visited him for a while, and he then gave us a tour of Altimira and other nearby caves. We started back toward Madrid, and June and I both remarked that this part of Spain resembled parts of Wyoming. We stopped to view the old Roman aqueducts and the famous cathedral at Segovia and then continued on to Madrid, where we made a quick visit to the art museum. There was some celebration in Madrid at the time, and after a sleepless night from the continual revelry outside and directly beneath our hotel window, we were more than ready to depart for home. All things considered, it was a good trip.

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Easter Island I mentioned earlier that Bill Mulloy had shifted his research interests from the North American Plains to Easter Island about the time I was hired at UW. I had no desire to become involved in that part of the world, but he brought a young Easter Islander, Sergio Rapu, to UW as a student who later joined one of my field crews. Sergio married a Colorado girl, returned to Easter Island, and eventually became mayor of the island. We had a good relationship while he was at UW, and he offered June and me a standing invitation to pay them a visit on Easter Island. Irving Friedman of the USGS in Denver, Colorado, was a recognized expert on obsidian and geothermal activity, which brought him repeatedly to YNP, where June and I first met him and his wife, Rita. I was interested in obsidian because of its occurrence in archaeological contexts in several of my sites. Dating of obsidian artifacts is possible by measuring hydration rinds, but the reliability of these dates depends largely on the conditions present in the artifacts’ original contexts. Irving developed a method to implant probes in archaeological sites to measure the necessary temperature values and started doing this in several sites I was investigating. In 1977, June and I decided to take advantage of Sergio’s invitation and suggested that Irving and his wife join us. They were seasoned world travelers and mentioned that they had intended to take a cruise down the coast of Chile to see the glaciers and wondered if this might not be an opportunity to do this and also visit Easter Island. The Friedmans booked passage on a ship that carried about 70 passengers. The accommodations were adequate but somewhat unique. To acquire freshwater, the ship stopped at a waterfall that came off a perpendicular bluff and emptied directly into the ocean. The crew maneuvered a funnel-like contraption over the bow and, after two unsuccessful attempts, managed to fill the freshwater tank. Local fishermen in small boats would appear out of nowhere and drop off fish and other seafood. Chunks of ice appeared as we approached the glacier area, and the crew would choose one of desired size and winch it aboard to provide refrigeration and cold drinks. Most of a day was spent watching a glacier as large blocks of ice calved off, creating waves that rocked the ship; it was reminiscent of a trip to the north coast of Alaska. Just before dark the ship headed back for Santiago, Chile, and shortly before daylight, we were actually thrown out of our beds by an abrupt stop. As we opened our cabin door, a crew member informed us that we had run aground. At daylight we could see that the bow of the

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ship was clear of the water and had actually pushed over a large tree. The only explanation we were able to get was that there had been a navigational error. Later that morning, a small freighter came by and, with a long rope, tried unsuccessfully to pull the ship back into the water. Still later, a Chilean navy ship appeared; members of its crew inspected our ship and informed the captain that the passengers would have to board another ship, which would unload us farther up the coast. We boarded the other ship, a freighter with almost no passenger accommodations, and spent an uncomfortable night crowded into passageways and the galley. We were loaded into buses the next morning and taken to an airstrip in the high country near the Chile–Argentina border and flown back to Santiago. After this, the trip to Easter Island was almost an anticlimax. However, it proved to be an interesting experience; Irving planted several temperature probes, and I studied obsidian sources and artifacts. I was intrigued by the fact that with all of the utilization of obsidian, the Easter Islanders never developed good lithic-reduction techniques. As is the case with all visitors to Easter Island, we were impressed with the immense stone statues. We wondered what motivated this Polynesian group to carve them from solid stone and how they were able to transport them long distances from the quarry and erect them on prepared platforms. We were impressed with Easter Island, but unlike Bill Mulloy, I was not tempted to further investigate its mysteries.

China The XIII International Union for Quaternary Research Congress was scheduled to convene in Beijing, China, during the summer of 1991. I was scheduled to present a paper, but on account of bad weather, we were unavoidably detained an extra day in Tokyo, Japan, and missed the presentation. However, we were able to take a tour to Choukoutien and see the sites of “Peking Man” and numerous discoveries made there since WWII. We also fought our way through a mob of tourists to see a restored section of the Great Wall and were duly impressed. Our main destination was Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s terra-cotta warriors site farther to the west in China. We were informed at the conference headquarters that there was a difficulty in booking a tour, but we noticed a booth at our hotel that advertised tours, and a very efficient young woman listened to our problem and, after consultation with another woman, told

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us to be ready to depart the next morning. We were informed as we left the airport at Beijing that a guide would meet us and escort us on a tour of the site. We learned that only part of the site was excavated and open for visi­ tors, but what was open was impressive. It was difficult to comprehend the effort and number of lives sacrificed to mold and fire the hundreds of human figures and horses displayed. It seemed almost incredible that each human face and head was a copy of a different individual molded, fired, and then attached to a body. Another burial pit to the west contained chariots and horses cast in bronze with gold halters and other trappings. Needless to say, we were deeply impressed. We were to remain in the area another day, and our guide offered to take us on a tour of pagodas, but we refused, and largely because photography was prohibited at the site of the terra-cotta warriors, we preferred to return there and take a closer look at what we had seen the day before. We enjoyed the second visit more than the first, and we did visit other archaeological sites. We noticed that the Chinese placed attractive and substantial structures over their sites so that they would be well protected. We came away well aware that the Chinese valued their archaeological sites far more than most of us do in America.

Mammoth Sites in the Soviet Union By 1988, the Cold War had cooled somewhat, and I happened to cross paths with Professor Olga Soffer from the University of Illinois, who had published on Russian Upper Paleolithic sites, and we conceived the idea of several U.S. Paleoindian archaeologists touring Russian sites one year and Russian archaeologists touring North American sites the following year. There was a move afoot at this time to encourage scientific exchanges between the United States and the USSR, so we contacted the International Research and Exchanges Board to approve our project and seek help in funding. We were successful, and Olga and I made a short trip to Moscow and Saint Petersburg in the fall of 1988 to confirm final arrangements for the following year. We were able to take nine American archaeologists and one British one (Figure 10.1) on a tour of several Russian Upper Paleolithic sites in 1989. It proved to be a rewarding and eye-opening experience. Unfortunately, it was too soon after the Chernobyl disaster to allow visitation to several mammoth sites in the Ukraine area.

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Figure 10.1. Archaeologists at the Ludinovo mammoth site in Russia: left to right, top row — ​Leslie Davis, Lewis Binford, George Frison, Clive Gamble, two Russian escorts, James Adovasio; center row — ​Dena Dincause, David Meltzer, Olga Soffer, Russian escort; front row — ​C. Vance Haynes, Sasha Krotova, Bruce Bradley.

After arriving in Saint Petersburg we were hosted in grand style by the Russians, and I was able to visit the Zoological Museum I wanted to see in 1982. Following a symposium there, we were flown to Voronezh to visit Kostenki, where mammoth site excavations were in progress. A large area was exposed that contained what we were told were several living structures below ground level. The investigators pointed out thick black levels, which they informed us were evidence that the Upper Paleolithic inhabitants had used mammoth bone for fuel. Following this we were escorted to the museum, with several mammoth bone structures inside. We were allowed to take off our shoes, descend into the pits, and wander about among all the mammoth bones. Needless to say, it was a momentous occasion and one I had never expected to occur. The next leg of the trip was to the city of Bryansk and then a long bus ride to the Ludinovo site, with more mammoth bone structures exposed by the removal of several meters of sediments. Aleksandra Abramova, a Russian mammoth expert, presented a lecture at the site (Figure 10.2), and afterward we were once more allowed to remove our shoes and descend into the excavation pits and inspect the skeletal remains firsthand. I inquired

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Figure 10.2. Archaeologist and mammoth expert Zoia Aleksandrova Abramova and a mammoth bone structure at the Ludinovo site.

how they were able to find the support to construct the buildings over the site and was told that it was a community effort because they wanted to see the site preserved for future generations. Preservation was remarkable, and we were convinced we were treated to the ultimate of mammoth bone structure sites. On the return trip to Bryansk late in the evening, the bus stopped, and two young women carrying large bottles of vodka got aboard. They turned on the lights in the bus, poured everyone large glasses of vodka, and began entertaining us with songs. I tried to join in the revelry but was too tired to participate wholeheartedly. Many times since then when meeting with members on that trip we inevitably and unfailingly bring up the subject of the two “Bryansk Nightingales.” Perhaps because of my interest in mammoths that began during the investigation of the Colby Mammoth Kill site and continued to intensify, I still look back on the Ludinovo site mammoth bone structures as a career highlight. However, the Russian trip involved other Upper Paleolithic sites, including the Amvrosievka bison kill site near Donetz and the Soroki reindeer kill in Moldova. I really felt at home when I saw the bison bone bed at

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the former site, but it did not seem quite right with projectile points made on blades instead of bifaces. We took another long bus ride from Kishinev to the Upper Paleolithic reindeer site of Soroki, which was deeply buried under river deposits. We were even more exhausted on the return bus trip than we were from Ludinovo, but we were herded off to watch a group of native dancers. Our interest picked up when we realized that they were exceptionally well trained. When the performance was over, Lew Binford jumped onstage to congratulate the conductor of the group but was met with the announcement that one of our American visitors would entertain everyone. Completely unfazed, Lew drew from his family background and launched into an old West Virginia coal miners ballad. It turned into quite an evening. It is difficult to realize that as of this writing, Lew is no longer with us. We were flown to Moscow and on the last day were taken by bus to the old capital city of Vladimir, where we visited the Upper Paleolithic burial site of Sungir. We were taken to the museum and allowed a firsthand view of the actual skeletons and burial items, including long, carved ivory rods. All things considered, the trip was an unqualified success. However, Olga Soffer was undoubtedly the key to this success. Without her boundless energy and intimate knowledge of Russian language and culture, I am sure that we would have floundered at many stages in our trip. The next year, 1990, we entertained the Russian contingent, first with a symposium at the Denver Museum of Natural History and then with a tour of several sites. I was well aware that our Paleoindian sites failed to match what we had witnessed the year before. However, the results of the exchange served to encourage cooperative work between American and Russian scientists. The Saint Petersburg symposium papers were later published by Plenum Press (Soffer and Praslov 1993). This was my last visit to the USSR, although I tried unsuccessfully to be included on a trip to ­Wrangel Island, where there were supposed to be remains of dwarf mammoths.

African Elephants Bison, bear, elk, deer, pronghorns, and the common carnivores and scavengers are easy to observe today to study their behavior, but mammoths are not, and I began to think that elephants might provide a suitable ana­ logue. Many archaeologists and others questioned the assumption that a Clovis projectile point, used as either a spear or a dart, could inflict a lethal

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wound on a mammoth. I have always argued the value of experimentation with tools and weapons, always well aware that it could not claim to repeat the events in a particular past procurement situation but it could establish parameters of what could and could not be expected of a tool or weapon. I managed to measure mammoth hide thickness while in Russia in 1982 and did the same with dead circus elephants here in the United States. I punched holes in elephant hide with a thrusting spear using a Clovis point replica mounted on the end of a wooden shaft. These experiments were informative, but I wanted to be more realistic and practice on live elephants. While at the SI in 1980, I became acquainted with Gary Haynes, who, later on, established an elephant research program in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Overhearing Haynes’s discussion of elephant culling, my spouse, June, collared both of us and suggested that this situation might present an opportunity to pursue some level of experimentation with live African elephants. I had serious doubts that any wildlife manager in a national park in Zimbabwe would even consider such a proposal, but I was pleasantly surprised when Gary confirmed that Clem Coetzee, head of wildlife management at Hwange (commonly referred to as Wanke), would allow me to go along on elephant-culling events, even though he was completely baffled about what I was doing or expected to learn. He warned me to keep out of the way, not make unreasonable demands, and avoid anything that might disrupt the culling process. June agreed to sacrifice enough of our savings for airfare to South Africa and Zimbabwe, and SAA president-elect Don Fowler agreed to take over SAA affairs for the two weeks in July I would be gone. Upon arrival at the main camp in Wanke, I was told that I could bunk in whatever quarters were available for the culling operations and fall in the chow line with everyone else. It sounded like conditions I was familiar with during a large share of my earlier life. It was winter in Zimbabwe, with nighttime temperatures regularly dipping to freezing but rebounding to comfortable daytime levels. Clem told me to be ready to depart at daybreak. When his Land Rover roared to life the next morning, I piled into the back for a long, cold, rough ride to the location of an elephant family selected for the day’s culling. I was wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the animals along the way, which included buffalo, giraffes, zebras, and others. We stopped abruptly, and Clem shook a dust bag to test wind direction. He took his firearm and, followed by three other shooters, headed toward a thick brush patch where I could barely perceive an elephant’s head. Clem kept advancing, and the elephant charged but

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suddenly stopped. On the third charge, Clem fired, and the animal dropped on all fours. The other animals crowded the fallen matriarch and were dispatched by the other shooters. I did not keep track of time, but it could not have been more than a few minutes before there was a pile of 32 dead animals. Bruce Bradley had made me several Clovis points out of different raw materials, so I took one of chert and another of quartzite, cut a wooden shaft about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and over an inch (2.5 centimeters) in diameter, cut a notch in one end, and, using sinew I had brought with me, secured a chert Clovis replica point in the notched end. I made a thrust at a mature animal that had collapsed on all fours, but lacking sufficient force, it barely penetrated the hide. With added force, the next thrust penetrated the rib cage, but with a severe jolt to my shoulder in the process. The next day, I prepared another shaft and using the quartzite point, penetrated the rib cage, but the point snapped on impact. Part of the problem was trying to penetrate the hide at an angle rather than at right angles to the surface. The distal end of the point of definitely inferior raw material fragmented on impact and snapped with no penetration. One other chert point snapped on impact close to the base due to an internal fracture in the raw material; eliminating this internal fracture resulted in one of my most dependable points (Figure 10.3). An obsidian point broke at an angle upon impact and could not be restored to use. This was enough experimenting with points for one day, so I turned my attention to cutting hide and butchering. Elephant hide is thick and tough to cut compared with bison hide, and I realized very quickly that the edges of both a biface and a large flake dulled rapidly in cutting elephant hide and required frequent resharpening. I am convinced that due to its grainy texture, a quartzite tool maintained a cutting edge longer than one of chert. Maintenance of tools and weaponry and familiarity with the internal structures of raw material were major concerns in penetrating and butchering elephants. I was reasonably satisfied with the results but wanted to return and experiment with an atlatl and dart. Clem Cotzee said that he could put up with me during the next culling season but was still mystified by what I was hoping to accomplish. Using examples of atlatls and darts from Spring Creek Cave (Figure 3.3) in the 1950s, I made replicas and actually managed to procure several rabbits and other small animals. However, I knew that this weaponry would be woefully inadequate against elephants. Long, straight shafts of willow (Salix sp.) are easily obtained but lack the strength to withstand the

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Figure 10.3. Experimental Clovis projectile point used to penetrate freshly killed elephant carcasses at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.

punishment of penetrating the thick hides of larger animals. Chokecherry (Prunus sp.) was the only other local wood I could find that provided long shafts with the necessary tensile strength. I made several atlatls and main shafts and practiced as much as possible during the winter of 1984. The L. S. B. Leakey Foundation provided airfare, and I was welcomed back by the Wanke wildlife group, even though they were convinced I was insane. I considered the two trips to Zimbabwe a success and came away with ideas I thought might be used to develop a procurement strategy relevant to Paleoindian mammoth hunting in North America. The dart shaft with foreshaft inserted I made was over 6 feet long (Figure 10.4), so I redesigned it with a center splice in order to be allowed to carry it on the airline. This weakened it enough to require splints held in place with sinew (see Frison 1989). This proved adequate, and I was able to get good penetration into the rib cages of several animals of different

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Figure 10.4. Author at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe with experimental weaponry.

ages. After participating in four culling operations in 1995, I believed that I had enough evidence to quell any doubts that a Clovis point mounted in a foreshaft that inserts into the end of a main shaft (Figure 10.3) and propelled with a throwing stick or atlatl will deliver a lethal wound to a mature African elephant. Furthermore, I can see no reason why this would not have been the case with a mammoth. However, the latter situation would have required a different strategy than the present one. Today’s shooter uses a large high-velocity projectile that enters the elephant’s skull between the eyes and eventually reaches the brain, and the animal immediately collapses. This cannot be done with the weaponry I used (Figure 10.4). One might assume that the ideal tactic to deliver a lethal wound would be to aim for the heart. However, the heart lies close to the bottom of the rib cage where the ribs flatten, form a protective cover, and can absorb the impact of the projectile. The mammoth hunter with a Clovis point had to penetrate the rib cage at the right spot, but even with ideal conditions, I cannot conceive that Clovis weaponry could provide sufficient shocking power to instantaneously drop a mature elephant (or mammoth) in its tracks.

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Figure 10.5. Cutting African elephant hide with a quartzite flake tool.

Lithic use-wear analysis evolved into a major topic and culminated with a conference at Simon Fraser University at Burnaby, British Columbia, in 1977. The results were published as a proceedings volume in 1979 (Hayden 1979). I always took a pragmatic approach to tool manufacture, use, and maintenance and, from experience, argued that the best approach was to look at the conditions present on a functional tool edge and compare these with the conditions present on the same edge when it became no longer functional. This approach was not highly acclaimed at the conference, but the paper was published (Frison 1979). I still believe that this is a valid approach because there are many subtle differences between a tool edge that will cut thick hide and one too dull to perform properly. Not only does one need to take a close look at the tool edge, but it is of equal importance to analyze the manufacture and use of the equipment needed to maintain a tool and restore it to a usable condition. I strongly believe that the experimental approach to tool use was validated through elephant skinning and butchering in Zimbabwe. My best cutting tool was a large flake of Spanish Diggings (Wyoming) quartzite with a 2.0-inch (51-millimeter) cutting edge. I was able to cut 12 inches (30 centimeters) of .34-inch-thick (8.7-millimeter-thick) hide on the left shoulder of a juvenile male African elephant (Figure 10.5). To proceed, the tool had to be sharpened. On the other hand, once the tool was too dull to cut hide, it could still be used to cut sinew and flesh.

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One other development on stone weaponry tool use and analysis did come directly from the Zimbabwe experiments. Marvin Kay at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, became involved with microwear analysis and, after reading about my experiments with replicas of Clovis points and simple butchering tools on African elephants, requested the loan of the experimental items and the projectile points from the Colby Mammoth Kill site for analysis. The results were definitely encouraging (Kay 1996), and I was pleased to have provided something useful toward this approach to Paleoindian studies. Provided the mammoths were organized with a matriarch in charge, as is the case with African elephants, the hunters would have needed to isolate an animal and kill it in such a manner that the matriarch was unaware of what was happening. In no way do I believe that Clovis hunters, unlike the modern elephant hunters, had the weaponry to have immediately immobilized a matriarch and then kill her entire family as they sought her protection. I firmly believe that a workable strategy would have been for one or more hunters to have patience, find an animal away from the close protection of the matriarch, and then place the projectile (or projectiles) into a spot that would eventually lead to its gradual immobilization and finally its death. Clovis mammoth hunting was involved mainly with nursery herds and not the mature males that leave the family to return only when the females are in the estrus part of the breeding cycle. This is certainly supported by the evidence at the Colby site described above. All of this constitutes food for thought on past mammoth procurement but offers no actual solutions. In retrospect, the elephant experience was a high point in my life. The downside was that many persons regarded culling elephants in this way as animal cruelty rather than a strategy to prevent serious loss of elephant habitat. Two final observations are that I have to admit that the Wanke wildlife managers were superior hunters and elephant meat from a young animal is about equal to that of any wild game. The Zimbabwe hunters maintained a tradition of a nightly bath with, what seemed to me, extremely hot water. No matter how far from main camp their culling activities took them, one truck was loaded with the bathtub, water, and a heating vat. The first task upon reaching their destination was to set up the equipment and cut wood to heat the water. I enjoyed the baths but always waited until the last to allow the water to cool. Another development came about during my second summer in Zimbabwe. There is a certain age when an elephant calf can be successfully

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separated from its mother and survive on its own. A wildlife group decided to acquire as many elephant calves as possible from culling operations and move them to a large preserve in Florida. The method used to determine the proper age was to measure the distance from the top of the front quarter to the bottom of the front foot, and if the measurement fell within certain limits, the animal would be spared. The wildlife managers could estimate age closely, but still, each one had to be measured. They were lassoed with a heavy rope, wrestled to the ground, and held down while they were measured. The ones within the measurement limits were loaded into a truck and taken to a special enclosure. During my second year there, the number built up to more than 60, and they decided that it was time to transport them to Florida. The Florida wildlife group had acquired an old Boeing 707, removed the passenger seats, and replaced them with square pens of proper size to hold an elephant calf. I was recruited to help with the operation; we loaded the elephant calves in the same way I had loaded cattle into trucks in my ranching days and transported them to the airstrip. The calves did not like going up the ramp into the plane, and it took longer than anticipated to secure them in the pens. The airport runway at Victoria Falls was just long enough to get the plane into the air, and there were no runway or other lights. The last calf was secured just at sundown, the same time all the ani­ mals in the surrounding forest poured out onto the runway. Every motor vehicle available was immediately recruited to clear the animals off the runway and provide enough light for takeoff. The Boeing 707 was heavily loaded and just managed to clear the trees, and the elephants were on their way to a new home. I learned two years later that they all survived and were doing well. The whole affair was very different from but still revived memories of my earlier years around domestic animals.

Olduvai Gorge For unexpected and, as yet, unexplained reasons, in 1986 I was asked to go along with Tim White, Donald Johanson, and Lewis Binford to Ol­ duvai Gorge in Tanzania to explore the possibilities of future work at that location. Tim White had worked with Mary Leakey and apparently had discussed the possibility of future work at Olduvai. I could make no claim for a background in paleoanthropology or in African archaeology, but I was deeply interested in the Leakeys’ work, in the geology of Olduvai Gorge, and in taking advantage of this rare opportunity. I cautiously brought up

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the subject to my wife, June, and was presented with the nonnegotiable position that I could go but, considering I had visited Africa on elephant-­ culling operations the preceding two summers, only if she could go along. I told her that it would be a tough trip, but the only alternative was for me to give up the opportunity to see Olduvai. It turned out that she weathered the trip well and, aside from a few tense occasions, admitted that it was one of our better trips. We met Binford in Arusha, spent a day on an extremely rough road in a very uncomfortable vehicle, and arrived at Ngorongoro late in the evening. The next morning we were able to view the herds of animals at the bottom of the crater and then continued on to Mary Leakey’s camp at Olduvai and met up with White and Johanson. What we did not know is that relations between the latter two and Mary Leakey had deteriorated, so she had removed part of the camp equipment. The result was that preparing meals required innovations. The people at the camp managed to acquire a cow, which, compared with a grass-fed, North American High Plains counterpart, left much to be desired. However, cooked over a bed of hot coals, the meat was not too bad and even reminded us of similar occasions in our earlier ranch life. It was easy to understand why the Leakeys settled on Olduvai Gorge as a likely location to expect evidence of early hominids. The sides of the gorge revealed a profile of several hundred feet of accumulated deposits associated with faunal remains and stone tools. In addition, it is a situation with a high probability of producing faunal evidence of the toolmakers in datable contexts. However, the structures erected in attempts to protect several of the Leakeys’ discoveries during their halcyon days at the gorge were beginning to reflect the passage of time. The pedestal holding the commemorative plaque pinpointing the discovery location of Zinjanthropus was broken, allowing the plaque to move downslope and out of its original location. Most of the damage was probably due to large animals trampling the area. It was not long after the annual migration of wildebeests through the area, and I was intrigued with the similar way in which lions had exploited each of the many recently killed carcasses that dotted the plain adjacent to the gorge. Tracks of various animals were in the dust in front of our compound every morning, but they caused us no trouble. After several encounters, June and I both agreed that we did not care much for baboons. On our last day at Olduvai, we managed a side trip to see the old hominid footprints preserved in the solidified stone deposits at the Laetoli site.

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I do not believe that our presence resulted in subsequent work at Olduvai. However, it was a learning experience, and as June and I thumbed a ride back to Arusha, we were rewarded with a clear view of Kilimanjaro on the way. Another ride on a truck took us to Nairobi, and having to wait a day for a flight to London, we rented a car and drove to the Paleolithic hand ax site of Olorgesailie discovered earlier by the Leakeys. In retrospect, the entire venture was a segment of our lives that we look back on with both good and not-so-good memories. An unlikely set of circumstances brought June and me into personal contact with Mary Leakey. Thomas Strook from Casper, Wyoming, was appointed U.S. ambassador to Guatemala and happened to meet Mary Leakey during his travels. Their ensuing discussion during the trip led to an invitation to Leakey to visit Wyoming and present a lecture or two. She accepted, and June and I escorted her around parts of Wyoming for four days. She especially enjoyed the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming, where the wildflowers were in full bloom. We stopped at a pool of water along the road that I informed her was a beaver pond. She insisted on stopping for a closer look just as a beaver slapped the water with his tail and dived. We were surprised that she would take this much interest in a beaver after her decades of experience with African animals. Needless to say, her lectures were enthusiastically attended. In our short time of traveling with Mary Leakey, we realized that she was a very special person.

More on Africa Africa seemed to irresistibly draw our attention. I had stopped briefly at Victoria Falls while en route to elephant culls in Wanke and promised to take June there at a future date. We learned that friends of ours, Raymond and Gail Gossett from Riverton, Wyoming, wanted to see the falls, so we again contacted David Abrams, who agreed to make the travel arrangements. The water in the Zambezi River was low during my visit, but during the second visit it was the opposite, and it was a truly spectacular sight. We were impressed by the rain forest formed by the condensation of mists rising from the bottom of the gorge as the water collided with the rocks. We took a short boat trip up the Zambezi River to see the herds of hippos in the river and the crocodiles sunning on the riverbanks. We stopped at the Hwange National Park main camp but could not contact any of the wildlife people I met during the elephant culls.

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On the way to Harare, we stopped at the Great Zimbabwe site with the intriguing dry-laid stone structures. The material used in their construc­ tion was granite that exfoliated in sheets from large boulders exposed on a nearby hillside. We accidentally and unintentionally came to the site from the rear and not the main entrance. We were finally spotted on the hillside examining the granite rocks, and loud shouts suddenly emanated from the main entrance. Some women rushed out of a building and hurried to several brush huts, quickly changed clothes, and began weaving baskets, grinding nuts in wooden mortars, and performing other household chores. Unaware of tourists, they had been watching TV, visiting, and enjoying soft drinks. After leaving Harare, we drove south to Johannesburg and then to Pretoria to visit the Transvaal Museum. A mutual acquaintance, Dr. Francis Thackery, head of the Paleontology Department, greeted us as we walked into the museum. We had met earlier at an international conference, and he gave us a tour of the museum, and we were able to see firsthand many of the original hominid fossils recovered many decades earlier. Our next stops were at the sites of Taung, Sterkfontein, and Makapan. This experience left a vivid impression of the efforts required to retrieve the fossils out of the solid rock that encased them inside the cave sites. Remembering a bad experience as a high school student attempting to retrieve honey from a bee tree, I was hesitant to enter one cave because of stories of the aggressiveness of African bees, which had taken up residence at the cave entrance. However, I overcame my fears and was deeply impressed at the amount of material removed earlier by the miners. In addition, there were remnants of the cave deposits with animal fossils still visible. After leaving this area, we were driving along a dirt road, and I asked a local man driving cattle if we could go through a fence and drive to the seashore, where high waves were pounding the beach. With permission granted, I got out of our vehicle to open a gate just as a large cobra crossed the road a few feet in front of me and disappeared into bushes around a water tank. It was a startling experience, and on our way back I asked the cattle driver if he was aware of the snake. He responded that he was well aware of its presence; it never bothered the cattle or humans, stayed around the water tank, and preyed on small animals that came to drink. The trip ended in Cape Town with visits to several local attractions. We chartered a boat trip to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent nearly three decades as a prisoner breaking rocks. While there, we were able to see

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our first live penguins. The fog on Table Mount cleared late one afternoon, and we were able to take the tramway to the top. It was an interesting and informative trip, but this was the last of our trips to Africa.

Argentina Ranching operators maintained a close relationship with experiment farms throughout Wyoming that are sponsored by UW. The range-management division became interested in rangeland grasses in Patagonia that grew well under harsh climatic conditions there, and this led to experiments to deter­ mine if they might adapt to Wyoming range conditions. I knew one of the people who spent a season in Patagonia working with the different grasses. He was aware that I was interested in artifacts and came by the ranch one day to show me a cloth bag of chipped-stone projectile points he had picked up while engaged in fieldwork. They were remarkably similar to those I had collected on our ranch, and the experience whetted my appetite to someday visit that part of South America. The interest intensified about two decades later when I saw pictures of fluted and stemmed projectile points from Fells Cave in southern Argentina (Bird 1946; Lanning and Hammel 1961) and El Inga in Ecuador (Bell 1960), and I hoped for an opportunity to visit those countries and study the artifacts. June and I were attending the 1992 SAA meetings in Pittsburgh when a woman, Nora Flegenheimer, introduced herself and said that she was an archaeologist from the University at Mar del Plata, Argentina, and wanted to discuss Paleoindian sites. An hour or so later we had an invitation to visit Buenos Aires. A small informal conference was arranged, and I was asked to present a paper on North American High Plains Paleoindian. At the conference, I was able to examine several of the fluted fishtail projectile points brought there by different Argentine archaeologists. Subsequently, we traveled south by bus about 450 kilometers to Necochea, where Nora and her husband owned a farm. The weather was good, and the trip gave us a good view of the Pampas. We were invited to stay at the Flegenheimer farm in Necochea, which was close to several Paleoindian sites Nora was involved with. Some of the fishtail points I saw in Buenos Aires came from the site of Cerro El Sombrero about 120 kilometers north of Necochea. Nora said that she had excavated at Cerro La China, another site with fishtail points about 80 kilo­ meters north of Necochea. She escorted us to these two sites and another

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in the area, Arroyo Seco, that did not produce fishtail points but did have extinct fauna. It was a rewarding experience, and we would have liked to return, see more of Argentina, and learn more about their Paleoindian sites, but this would have interfered with too many projects at home. We would have liked to have extended our trip to Uruguay, where Paleoindian sites are appearing in the Rio Negro Basin (Femenias et al. 2011), but were unable to change our itinerary in time. The hospitality of Nora and her husband was memorable to say the least. They took time to escort us to a cattle ranch, which revived many memories of our earlier years. Their horses and cattle were well bred and selected for quality, but their saddles and tack were quite different from what we were familiar with. Their saddles in particular were heavily padded, in contrast to the typical western saddle I had always used. At the same time we were visiting their ranch, we learned that two of their sons were at Colorado State University, 60 miles from our home in Laramie, Wyoming, attending a special session on the artificial insemination of cattle. We enjoyed the food in Argentina and sampled maté, their national drink, several times during our short visit, but neither of us developed a taste for it. Nora’s research in Paleoindian sites has progressed remarkably well, and she presented a paper at the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during October 2013 (Flegenheimer et al. 2013). It was good to see Nora again and renew our acquaintance after a lapse of two decades.

‹ 11 › Activities in Professional Organizations

Plains Anthropologist It became a tradition to hold the annual PAC in Lincoln, Nebraska, over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was the logical place to convene such meetings; it was the location of the University of Nebraska and the regional center of the NPS and the Nebraska Historical Society, all deeply involved in Plains archaeology. I attended the 1958 conference and took along some of the perishable material I had recovered earlier from Spring Creek Cave. I knew no one there other than William Mulloy from UW and two members of the WAS from Sheridan, Wyoming, and felt very much like an intruder. Most of those present were interested in the cave materials because of the scarcity of perishable artifacts of the same age in their research areas. It was my first experience listening to conference papers by professionals and by students from various institutions. It was easy to see that it was the first experience for some who were nervous in facing a critical and unmerciful audience. It was common knowledge that if a student presented more than one bad paper, he or she was asked to transfer to a different department. Dr. John Champe is credited with building up the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska and was largely responsible for the development of the annual Plains Anthropological Society along with the PA, the journal of the Plains conference. I was impressed when, as chair of a session, he had a clock with a loud alarm that sounded when the speaker’s time expired. This effectively stopped presenters who would try to extend their own time at the expense of others’. I was unable to attend the Plains conference again until 1962 and 1963 and missed it while at graduate school in 1964 and 1965. After joining the faculty at UW in 1967, I became an annual contributor, along with my 207

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students. I was elected to the Board of Directors of the PA in 1970 and moved up to president of the board in 1973. I encouraged students to attend the conference and present papers on their research. In this way, UW began to be recognized as a viable contributor to Plain’s archaeology. Traditionally, the PAC was held over the Thanksgiving holiday in Lincoln, but this was changed occasionally to different locations, and as the result of protests from spouses and small children left at home, the date was also changed. In 1995, the year I retired from teaching, the annual meeting was held at UW, where I was added to the list of recipients of the society’s Distinguished Service Award.

The Society for American Archaeology I had served on the Executive Board of the SAA in the early 1970s, and while at the Smithsonian in 1980, I was nominated to run for its presidency. Much to my surprise, I was elected to that position the next year. Four years earlier, the president’s term was expanded to two years as president-­ elect and two years as president, allowing more time to understand and be involved with the internal workings of the organization. To me, this was a wise decision. My predecessor, Richard E. W. Adams, believed that the SAA should adhere to the principles of a learned society and, as much as possible, avoid political wrangling with federal and state regulators. However, I could see no way to ignore mandates from these agencies that I believed were in too many instances negatively affecting archaeology as a science. Admittedly, this led to a somewhat contentious term as president, with limited success in dealing with the regulators and altering their mandates. However, Don Fowler was the new president-elect, and he and I, along with Secretary Leslie Wildesen, Treasurer Anetta Cheek, and Ruthann Knudson, who helped with legal matters, somehow managed to deal with external and internal affairs affecting the SAA. In addition, Cynthia Irwin-Williams answered our pleas for help in negotiating with federal agencies and performed admirably. By this time the SAA membership had elected to separate from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and strike out on its own. This required large amounts of negotiating with the AAA, which progressed more agreeably than I had anticipated. We had to choose a management group and an executive secretary; after screening several applicants, we made a wise choice and selected Jerome ( Jerry) Miller for the latter position. Allen Press in Lawrence, Kansas, was chosen to print the society

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journal, American Antiquity. One major distraction was the escalation of the Native American Indian movement, and activists began forcing their way into and attempting to disrupt meetings. In addition to the annual spring meeting, the SAA board members met at the annual fall meetings of the AAA. My last year as president of the SAA in 1985 coincided with its fiftieth anniversary. President-Elect Don Fowler performed admirably in helping to organize the 1985 annual meeting in Denver as a special occasion with recognition of the pioneers and others who left their indelible stamps on American archaeology. Patty Jo Watson (1985) edited and organized volume 50, number 2, of American Antiquity, which contained 26 selected contributions, and other equally worthy contributions were published separately. The last year of my presidency witnessed the establishment of the Crabtree Award for significant contributions to archaeology by nonprofessionals. I was pleased to be able to present the first Crabtree Award to Clarence H. Webb, M.D. Seven years later I helped in having the same award presented to Stuart Conner of Billings, Montana, in recognition of his many contributions to Plains archaeology. My two years as president-elect and two more as president were both rewarding and a learning experience, but at the end I was ready to turn the job over to the new president, Don Fowler. In addition, I was anxious to return to the elephant culling in Zimbabwe during July 1985 for more experiments with Clovis tools and weapons on African elephants. I had spent most of my spare time during the winter of 1984–1985 preparing the materials and practicing to revive earlier skills. In 2005, I received the SAA Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Subsequent to this, I was unable to attend the SAA annual meetings for several years, until 2012, when a daylong symposium was organized for C. Vance Haynes and me at the seventy-seventh annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. I was part of the geriatric contingent, but it was a good meeting, and I saw many colleagues but missed many others no longer present.

The Buffalo Bill Museum and Cultural Center in Cody, Wyoming Not surprisingly, Cody, Wyoming, has capitalized on its namesake, William F. Cody, to enhance its image as a travel destination. Its success is further enhanced because tourists entering YNP through its east entrance must go through Cody. It was inevitable also that the town’s major tourist attraction

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would bear the name of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC). Its image improved immeasurably after WWII, when Dr. Harold McCracken took over the reins as director. McCracken was a flamboyant sort who claimed more than one honorary Ph.D. but no earned degree. However, he had political clout and contacts with individuals in positions advantageous to building the BBHC into what eventually emerged as a nationally recognized center for western art and American Indian studies. I was familiar with Cody through my investigation of the Horner Paleoindian archaeological site and others in the vicinity. I became acquainted with McCracken through my uncle Paul Frison, who many years earlier had acquired an authentic and outstanding American Indian, floor-length, eagle feather headdress. It was of a quality that McCracken deemed worthy of display in the BBHC, and the museum was eventually able to acquire it. McCracken was always on the lookout for similar items and was usually successful in acquiring them. He became acquainted with Robert Edgar, who was mentioned earlier in the context of the Sheep Mountain Paleoindian animal-trapping net, and since Edgar was familiar with the surrounding area, he was recognized by McCracken as a valuable source for items to enhance displays in the BBHC. Most notable is a desiccated human in a mountain sheep hide garment from Mummy Cave. It was a major item for display until pressure from the American Indian movement gained enough strength to have it moved to a repository. During my first two years as Wyoming state archaeologist, I learned of an authentic, well-preserved, conical-shaped structure, probably an Early Historic Plains Indian war lodge (Figure 11.1, left) constructed with wooden poles. It was in a remote area of central Wyoming, and since these kinds of perishable structures are rapidly disappearing, I suggested to the people at the BBHC that they might consider retrieving it for an exhibit. They were in agreement, and I helped them with the project. The location was difficult to access, and the poles had to be carried for some distance. While dismantling the structure, we soon realized that its foundation consisted of three forked poles locked together 120 degrees apart, and other timbers were leaned against them. Upon reassembling it in the museum, they insisted on placing the bottoms of the poles contiguous to each other in a perfect circle. I had to remind them that some of the inner poles were placed to catch water and keep the inside of the structure relatively dry. They did not totally agree with me, but they made some adjustments, and it still remains on display at the BBHC.

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Figure 11.1. Probable Early Historic Plains Indian conical pole war lodge structures from Wyoming.

Mummy Cave is located in the Absaroka Mountains along the North Fork of the Shoshone River several miles east of the YNP east entrance. The BBHC, under the direction of Wilfred Husted of the NPS, conducted the investigation of this deeply stratified site, which produced intermittent evidence of human habitation beginning nearly 10,000 years ago and continuing up into early historic times. My only connection to the Mummy Cave project was to guide a field trip to the cave site following the first American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) meeting at Montana State University in 1970. Once the group assembled at the cave, McCracken took over with the formal presentation. On the other hand, I was deeply interested in the cultural materials from Mummy Cave and made numerous visits to the BBHC to compare them with materials from my own cave site investigations in the Bighorn Mountains. In the late 1990s, the BBHC conceived the idea of an expansion into the natural history of the GYE. Much of the South Fork of the Shoshone River is owned by relatively wealthy individuals, and one was a woman, Nancy Draper, who developed an interest in the BBHC and was later convinced to contribute a substantial sum of money toward the construction of a new museum addition, which was to be named the Draper Museum of Natural History. I was asked to serve on the advisory board along with

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David Love, a well-known geologist with the USGS and authority on the geology of the GYE. It was mostly an honorary appointment but required attendance at numerous meetings. There was no travel budget, but I was compensated somewhat because my wife and I both enjoyed the Cody area and our many friends who lived there. The central theme of the new museum was the ecology of the GYE. This was understandable because the livelihood of the BBHC depended on tourists who were understandably more interested in wildlife and scenery than artifacts from archaeological sites. However, the BBHC governing body needed to keep the Buffalo Bill image prominent in the new venture, so they commissioned a sculptor to produce a mass of several bison suspended in midair as they were on their way to their demise on the rocks below. I argued with the board that they should also consider displays based on the Paleoindian Horner site bone bed, Early Historic mountain sheep traps from the mountains, and Folsom-age artifacts and features from the nearby Hanson site, but their blueprint for the project was pretty well cast in stone. I remained on the advisory board for five years, until the Draper Museum was completed and the grand opening was over. At this point in time, I began to feel that there was very little I could contribute and someone else with a fresh outlook on future directions of the BBHC should take my place. Cody was 400 miles from our home in Laramie, Wyoming, and travel back and forth was becoming difficult. Board meetings and demands on my time threatened the completion of several research projects I needed to finish, so with a feeling of reluctance I resigned from the board. At this time, there are only two things I was instrumental in acquiring for or contributing to the BBHC. One consists of two Bison antiquus skulls from the Horner site that I was able to restore to a condition satisfactory enough for public display, along with several projectile point casts from the same site investigations in 1977. The other is the conical pole war lodge (Figure 11.1, left) I helped retrieve several years earlier.

The American Quaternary Association AMQUA provides a rallying point for specialists involved in environmental studies of the Pleistocene and recent time periods, and many aspects of these studies have proved essential to archaeologists. AMQUA has played an important role in forcing a large share of archaeological efforts, especially

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those in the realm of Paleoindian studies, into multidisciplinary contexts and allowing archaeology a better chance to claim the status of a true science. The association meets at a different location every other year and selects a specific topic of study for each meeting. I attended the first meeting at Montana State University in Bozeman in 1970. Field trips were held at several locations in and around YNP including Mummy Cave, and the symposium topic was on climatic change from 14,000 to 9,000 years ago. The third meeting was held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The topic was man’s interaction with Holocene climatic change, and I was involved in organizing one section of the presentations. For me, this was an especially productive meeting because I became acquainted with Dr. Reid Bryson. He claimed later that I was influential in causing him and his son to develop a strong interest in climate change as it pertains to archaeology. True or not, their climatic studies have proved to be significant and useful to all archaeologists. The fifth meeting was held in Edmonton, Alberta, and I was involved with a session on bison and man in North America. I was appointed a councillor in anthropology and archaeology at the Seattle, Washington, meeting in 1982. Following this I was on the Editorial Advisory Board for several years. My main criticism of AMQUA is that annual meetings were too often scheduled to interrupt summer fieldwork and thus limited meeting attendance. The 2010 meeting was at UW, where I was surprised by being presented with the AMQUA Distinguished Career Award. It is a handsome award and one I value highly. It is heavy and consists of a horse on a platform, both of solid bronze. It is an impressive piece of artwork designed by Dale Guthrie from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

‹ 12 › Other Sites and Projects

There is a category of projects that continue to attract one’s attention though their pursuit can be frustrating because they require large investments in time and energy that seldom result in satisfactory answers. Included are sites that produce evidence that does not fit into the established and expected patterns of past human occupations. Others are manifestations that are nearly always underfoot and visible, but their investigation appears to lead nowhere. Still others appear peripheral to the mainstream of interest but are of enough interest to continually surface and demand further attention. Finally there is that rare occasion when the actual data are manipulated in an attempt to promote unlikely possibilities. I believe that several of these have influenced my thinking and attitude toward archaeology.

The El Bosque Site in Nicaragua Because of the attention resulting from the Casper, Hanson, and Colby sites in Wyoming, I was invited to present a paper at a Paleoindian session at the 1974 XLI Congresso Internacional de Americanistas in Mexico City. Neither a registrant nor a presenter, Jorge Espinosa, an archaeologist from Nicaragua, brought several crudely flaked pieces of chert from a site in Nicaragua that contained extinct animals and of an age claimed to be several thousand years older than Clovis. Espinosa also had what seemed to be an almost unlimited expense account. He wined and dined the Paleo­ indian archaeologists attending the conference at expensive restaurants and touted the El Bosque site. Ultimately, a conference was scheduled at the El Bosque site for 1976, and following the SAA annual meeting in Saint Louis, Missouri, several archaeologists, myself included, as well as my wife, June, 214

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departed for Managua, Nicaragua. We soon learned that Espinosa had the strong support of the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza. As we viewed the site, the investigators argued that a configuration of sloth bones was the result of human activity, as well as claiming that marks on the bone were from stone tool use. A stone arrangement was also pointed to as possible evidence of human activity. However, the main argument for human involvement were strange-appearing, tool-like objects of chert. We were skeptical of these objects as human tools, so they presented what they hoped would be accepted as their real clincher; they claimed that a geological survey revealed that the chert in the site was not present in that drainage area and had to be imported from a different drainage basin. The next day Dennis Stanford and I began surveying the site area, looking at earlier test units and trenches. We spied a trench partly covered with brush. We moved the brush, and voila! At the bottom was a deposit of the chert supposed to have been transported to the site from another drainage basin. However, this did not explain the strange flaking patterns on the chert objects, and this was still used to argue human involvement. Even so, the integrity of the site had by now been too severely damaged for us to accept all of their original claims. Marie Wormington, in her courageous and outspoken way, expressed her concerns, but Espinosa held a press conference that accomplished nothing toward restoring the El Bosque site’s credibility. Later on, I heard one explanation of the flaking patterns on edges of the chert pieces — ​that they resulted from an unstable deposit of closely spaced boulders that slumped during wet periods, picking up pieces of chert and causing pressure flaking on some edges. Needless to say, El Bosque was no longer a serious candidate for an early human occupation in Meso­ america. I was curious about Espinosa and wondered what happened to him after Somoza’s dictatorship exploded. Several years later I got a phone call from him informing me that he believed he could raise some money for another project somewhere in Central America and asking if I would be interested. Thank you, Jorge, but no thanks.

Mesa: A Paleoindian Site North of the Brooks Range in Alaska A survey in 1978 by the BLM in the National Petroleum Reserve north of the Brooks Range in Alaska revealed Paleoindian evidence on the surface atop an isolated butte rising about 60 meters above the relatively flat

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surrounding country. After follow-up work on the butte, BLM archaeologist Michael Kunz realized that it was a large site with buried deposits, some of which contained hearths with datable charcoal. The first radio­ carbon date was about 7,600 rcybp using the original solid carbon method. As the investigation continued, mass spectrometer dating became available, and new dates were in the 9,000–10,000 rcybp range. This led the excavators to suspect that the original date was in error; they were able to retrieve a small piece of charcoal left from the original sample, which was then dated by AMS at just over 10,000 rcybp. By this time, the investigators, Michael Kunz and Richard Reanier, had accumulated a large assemblage of Paleoindian points and tools, and their search of the literature for comparative material led them to the AB site published by Academic Press (Frison and Stanford, eds. 1982). This resulted in their bringing some of their specimens to UW to look at the AB site artifacts. There was no reason to question that the Mesa site artifacts were of Paleoindian age, and some did bear a close technological and morphological resemblance to AB, as was later confirmed by Bruce Bradley. They planned to continue work at the Mesa site and invited C. Vance Haynes, Jr., Phil Shelley, and me to visit the site and give our reactions. We eagerly accepted and looked forward to seeing the country north of the Brooks Range. The isolated nature of the site required a helicopter for the final leg of the trip to and from the site. The site is somewhat of an enigma; as it is located on an isolated butte, the investigators suggested that it was utilized as a lookout for animals in the surrounding area. Artifacts were recovered both on the surface and beneath an organic horizon that contained hearths, of which 13 yielded mass spectrometer radiocarbon dates ranging from 9,700 to 11,700 rcybp. The investigators believe that the Mesa site represents an early Paleoindian cultural complex in eastern Beringian Alaska separate from the American Paleoarctic Tradition and Nenana Complex. Provided the radiocarbon dates are correct, the Mesa Complex could be contemporaneous with and separate from the early Paleoindians to the south. The Mesa site is a real pot-stirrer, and its ramifications should result in more future investigations (Kunz and Reanier 1995). The helicopter at our disposal allowed a visit to the nearby type site of the Arctic Small Tool Tradition. It also allowed an aerial view of an Eskimo caribou-trapping complex. Lines of stone piles demonstrated the location of drive lines, reminiscent of drive lines in bison-procurement sites on the

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Plains, ending at a lake. Once the prey were in the water, hidden hunters in watercraft were able to pursue and kill swimming animals and bring them to the shore. A lasting impression of the trip was that I would never again complain about mosquitoes after dealing with the swarms of these insects in the Arctic. An added and unexpected bonus to the venture was an opportunity to examine other collections and visit several sites in the southern Alaska area. I concluded that archaeological site investigations in that area are especially difficult due largely to relatively inaccessible locations and almost impenetrable areas of underbrush. To me the artifact assemblages we viewed provided valuable coverage of Arctic Paleoindian sites, but I could detect no observable or convincing indications of a relationship between them and Clovis in the lower 48 states.

The Jackson Lake Archaeological Project in Northwest Wyoming Jackson Lake lies in the valley of the Upper Snake River in what is now Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) and one of the more scenic areas of North America. It is a natural lake at an elevation of about 6,730 feet (2,040 meters), and the water level was raised by a dam across the outlet that was completed in 1916. This raised the high water level to 6,772 feet (2,064 meters), and the main purpose was to store water for flood control and irrigation use farther down the Snake River in Idaho. Concerns over the stability of the dam began to surface in the late 1970s and along with this, fear that it could result in a disastrous flood downstream. Fluctuations of lake levels and wave activity from weather conditions resulted in the removal of soil in some areas and accumulation in others, continually exposing historic and prehistoric artifacts. William C. (Slim) Lawrence and his wife, Verba, became permanent residents at the north end of Jackson Lake in 1930. They rapidly became avid collectors of artifacts of both historic and prehistoric age. Their collection grew until it finally forced Slim and another man to move the artifacts to a building in the town of Jackson in 1958, which later became the Jackson Hole Museum. I stopped by the museum and was surprised at the number of chipped-stone projectile points, tools, stone vessels, and other items Slim and his wife had collected from the area around Jackson Lake (see Diem et al. 1986). The late David Love was a USGS geologist and one of the recognized authorities on the geology of the Yellowstone Plateau and surrounding area

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(see Love and Reed 1971) and also had an interest in its history and archaeology. He suggested that I stop by and visit Slim Lawrence and learn more about his artifact-collecting areas. I followed Dave Love’s advice and could see that Slim kept his prize artifacts at home. Among them were several outstanding chipped-stone projectile points I was convinced were of late Paleoindian age. Slim offered to help me in any way he could, but at that time I could do nothing more than hope that sometime in the future an opportunity to investigate the area would emerge. Gary Wright was a graduate student at UM at the same time I was there. Upon completion of his degree, he was hired at the State University of New York at Albany and subsequently established a summer research program in the Jackson Hole valley area. He became aware of Slim Lawrence’s artifact collection, recognized the Paleoindian points as I had earlier, and hoped to locate a Paleoindian site with reliable stratified deposits. However, he was not successful in this effort and later moved his research interests to a different area. I was still hoping for an opportunity to look for the source of the prized items in Slim Lawrence’s collection. In the early 1980s, federal and other agencies involved finally reached an agreement to repair the Jackson Lake dam. Not surprisingly, there had been no survey of cultural resources prior to the original dam construction, and correcting this situation was part of the new project. The lake level was lowered in 1984, and a crew from the Midwest NPS Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, began a survey of the area above the highest lake level. By 1985 the area below this level dried out enough for survey to begin there. NPS archaeologist Melissa Conner became the principal investigator for the Jackson Lake Archaeological Project (JLAP). Relationships between many residents of the Jackson Hole valley and the various agencies involved with GTNP were not always a model of cooperation and tolerance. Largely because the JLAP included no one from UW or other Wyoming agency, political influence was unfortunately injected at higher levels. At one point, I was asked to act as principal investigator of the JLAP but turned it down. I believed that Melissa Conner was entirely capable of leading the project, and I was well aware also that my presence would almost certainly create problems with her crew and other NPS employees. On the other hand, I could close my eyes and see Slim Lawrence’s collection of Paleoindian points, which fueled a strong desire to find the necessary evidence in a reliable context.

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Attempting to arrive at a solution that would mollify all parties concerned, I proposed a project parallel with and separate from that of the NPS to dig trenches and attempt to locate intact Paleoindian site components in the trench profiles. The extent of the proposed trenching was far beyond what could be accomplished using hand tools, so I acquired a small backhoe. The backhoe approach was questioned by NPS but was finally approved, and the USGS geologist Kenneth Pierce was engaged to study the surface terrain and attempt to determine the most likely spots for intact buried cultural deposits. After two summers of fieldwork and hundreds of feet of trenching, we were unable to locate a single intact Paleoindian level. Without doubt, it was a disappointing and frustrating dead end to my part of the JLAP. At present, highway construction is scheduled for the north side of the Snake River a short distance south of the town of Jackson, and deep testing at the Game Creek site (48TE1573) has produced a stratified sequence of radiocarbon-dated cultural levels from LPA to Late Paleoindian (Page and Peterson 2014). Although I could not find this kind of evidence during the JLAP, I now have a strong feeling of relief and vindication with the unequivocal evidence of a Paleoindian presence in the Jackson Hole valley.

The Denver, Colorado, Dead Elephant Project Experiments in spearing and butchering mammoths had to be transferred to their only modern counterparts, Asian and African elephants (see, e.g., Stanford et al. 1981). This led to continual monitoring of circuses and zoos to access elephant carcass parts before their final disposal. On June 8, 1979, Margie, a 9,480-pound Indian elephant, died while being transported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Denver, Colorado, and was deposited at a Denver rendering plant. Bruce Rippeteau, the Colorado state archaeologist, was able to convince the owner of the rendering plant to delay cutting up the animal long enough to allow experiments with stone weaponry and butchering tools. Word was immediately spread, and on Monday, June 11, a group of nearly 50 persons including professional and avocational archaeologists performed thrusting spear and stone tool butchering experiments, in front of a crowd of onlookers. For a hastily assembled project, the results were quite remarkable. It was a hot day with swarms of flies, but the owner of the rendering plant had

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moved the animal into a building out of the sun and retarded the decomposition process enough to allow the experiments to proceed. For thrusting spear experiments, the rendering plant owner provided a crane to suspend the animal. Even with the help of the crane, we could not devise a way to get the animal in a normal standing position, but even with feet in the air, this did not hinder spear-thrusting experiments. Replicas of chipped-stone Clovis points were mounted in wooden foreshafts, which were inserted into the end of a long main shaft. Following the thrusting experiments, the animal was laid out and skinned and partially butchered with stone tools. At this point the butchering crew from the rendering plant took over and finished stripping the flesh. With the exception of the front and rear right legs, I was allowed to take the bones to add to our comparative collection. We lacked any kind of facility to clean bones this large, but I was told that organisms in a stagnant pond over a period of several months would clean the bones and eliminate all disagreeable odors. We were excavating at the AB site at the time, and a pond with the proper qualifications happened to be close by. Three months later, the bones were retrieved and were ready for storage. The project was a learning experience for all of us, and the thrusting experiments resulted in one professional paper (Huckell 1982). Rippeteau (1979) produced a less scientific but very entertaining account of the project. In addition the project set the stage for further experiments, including my two summers of weaponry and tool experiments on freshly killed elephants in Zimbabwe (Frison 1989). Incidentally, one of the long bones from Margie was frozen and later used for bone-flaking experiments (Rippeteau 1979).

The Hell Gap Site (48GO305) in Southeast Wyoming All the necessary conditions were in place to investigate the HG site in the late 1950s and early 1960s. James Duguid, a geology student at UW and also a knowledgeable avocational archaeologist, found the site in 1958. George Agogino was a temporary replacement for William Mulloy at UW in 1960– 1961 and began site testing in 1961, with results indicating a possible stratified sequence of Paleoindian cultural components. H. Marie Wormington from the Denver Museum of Natural History, and a leading authority on Paleoindian studies at that time, had close ties to Joseph ( Jo) Brew at the Harvard University Department of Anthropology. She was also the mentor of two young Denver archaeological students, Cynthia and Henry Irwin,

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who were beginning graduate study at Harvard. C. Vance Haynes, Jr., was shifting his interests into geoarchaeology, and, last but not least, the NGS was willing to provide the necessary monetary support, which lasted from 1962 through 1966. I was able to visit the HG site occasionally during this period while doing my own fieldwork and kept abreast of the developments there. I recall vividly the 1963 annual meeting of the SAA at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where Cynthia Irwin presented a status report on the HG site in southeast Wyoming to a large audience. At the end of the five-year Harvard University investigations at HG, they capped unfinished excavation units, of which there were a large number, with several inches of concrete. This would seem to have been an indication that they intended to continue their investigations at some later date, but the principal investigators, Henry and Cynthia Irwin, moved on to different research interests. Henry Irwin integrated part of the HG material into his 1967 Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard and moved on to Washington State University, where he was preparing it for publication while investigating another Paleoindian site. Cynthia Irwin became involved in the Valsequillo site in Mexico and later on in projects in the Southwest. The Harvard University Hell Gap Expedition was completing its site excavations in late summer of 1966 when the researchers encountered a cultural level stratigraphically below a Folsom cultural level in Area 1 (Figure 12.1). The one and only complete projectile point from the component (Figure 12.1, bottom, right) was first classified as Clovis, but further analysis demonstrated non-Clovis attributes, so they named it Goshen, from the county in Wyoming where the HG site is located. I was skeptical of the Goshen concept until excavating the Mill Iron site in Montana mentioned earlier in Chapter 6. However, I do not believe that there are as yet sufficient data to provide a satisfactory explanation for the Goshen Cultural Complex. Because the HG site is in Wyoming and there was only a short article published in the PA on the site results (Irwin-Williams et al. 1973), I could not help but wonder about the bulk of the materials recovered there and the future of the site. However, there was no reason to consider further site investigations until the Harvard materials were analyzed and published, and for others to attempt this would understandably require approval from the Irwins. Henry Irwin passed away in 1978, before he completed the changes to his dissertation for publication. Subsequent to this, I crossed paths with

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Figure 12.1. Witness profile at Area 1 at the Hell Gap site, August 18, 1966, with a photo of a Goshen projectile point (inset) (from Frison 1991).

Cynthia Irwin on several occasions and more than once asked if there was a possibility of teaming up for an analysis of the HG assemblage. She never came up with a firm no and always left the door open for further consideration. She finally consented to let me work with the HG materials just before she passed away in 1990. Most of the HG site was owned by the Frederick family of Guernsey, Wyoming. George Zeimens, one of my former students, was teaching at

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Eastern Wyoming Junior College in Torrington, Wyoming, and owned a small ranch nearby. One summer he leased grazing land for his cattle from the Fredericks and gradually established a good relationship. He brought up the subject of the HG site to the Fredericks and discovered that they had an interest in protecting it for future research. The WAS had earlier established the Wyoming Archaeological Foundation (WAF) to raise money for research purposes, and this seemed like the proper entity to negotiate a purchase of the site. The Frederick family placed a reasonable value on 240 acres that included the major part of the HG site, and in the summer of 1989 it was a done deal. The Gorman family of Guernsey donated several acres immediately adjacent that were ideal for laboratory and living facilities. Provided we moved it, Zeimens was able to convince Eastern Wyoming College to donate a building adequate for maintaining field crews. He was also able to negotiate for a building suitable for a laboratory, which was also moved to the site. The next step was to get permission to move the HG materials to UW. Fortunately, Stephen Williams from the Harvard Peabody Museum supported my request. I doubt that we would have succeeded in transferring the HG materials from the Peabody Museum to UW without his assistance. The HG site assemblage had never been accessioned by the Peabody Museum, and needed that to be accomplished before the move could become a reality. Another problem was that much had been dispersed to other locations. Henry Irwin took part of the artifact assemblage, which contained several items used in an article on Paleoindian tools (Irwin and Wormington 1970), along with the original site excavation records to Washington State University, where I was able to retrieve them. The faunal materials were moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for an analysis that never materialized and were retrieved by George Zeimens. Besides funding the purchase of the HG site, the WAF was able to provide funding to bring the dispersed parts of the collection to UW. When I picked up the HG lithic assemblage at the Harvard Peabody Museum for transfer to UW, the complete Goshen projectile point (Figure 12.1, bottom, right) was missing. The only information was a note claiming that Eleanor (Kay) Irwin, Henry and Cynthia Irwin’s mother, had possession of the point for casting purposes. Eleanor Irwin had developed an expertise in casting artifacts at the Denver Museum of Natural History. However, the point is still missing. Dennis Stanford found a cast of the missing point several years ago at the SI. We assume that the cast was made

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by Eleanor Irwin, and from line drawings of the cast by Ruthann Knudson and the earlier photograph (Figure 12.1, bottom, right), there is a fairly good record of the only complete Goshen point from the HG site and the artifact that was the foundation of the Goshen Paleoindian Cultural Complex. In 1993, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) established a program to analyze and publish collections such as HG, and in 1994 we were awarded $100,000.00 outright funding along with matching funds for money we could acquire from other sources. The NGS, the major funding source for the original Harvard University investigations, gave us $20,000.00, which was matched by NEH. We needed to open up parts of the Harvard excavations so that C. Vance Haynes, the HG site geologist during the Harvard investigations, could study old profiles, and we also needed new backhoe trenches and soils analysis to better understand site-formation processes. The NEH funding made it possible to realize substantial progress toward an analy­sis of the HG site. Although we tried very hard, we were unable to raise enough money to acquire all of the available NEH matching funds. However, Forrest Fenn and Mark Mullins donated sufficient funds to erect a weatherproof building over a large part of Area 1. At present, we have one book (Larson et al. 2009), three dissertations, four theses, and 20 articles in professional journals resulting directly from the HG data base, and more will appear before the analysis of the Harvard materials is completed. In addition, the data still in the ground should last indefinitely. In retrospect and although I was not involved in the HG site investigations, I was in close contact with the individuals directly involved. The importance of HG to High Plains Paleoindian cannot be overestimated, and the site had a strong influence on my own thoughts and ideas on the subject. It required a long period of negotiating with individuals, institutions, organizations, and money-granting agencies, but I can now look back favorably on the HG site project and know that the future of the site is secure. A terminal Paleoindian cultural complex came about as an adjunct development to HG. Harris and Betty Greene had rangeland 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of HG and took artifacts they had discovered there in 1966 and showed them to the Irwins at HG the same year. They appeared to be of Paleoindian age (Figure 12.2) but were somewhat different from any at HG, and Ann Monseth (Greene) Irwin, Henry Irwin’s wife and no relation

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Figure 12.2. Projectile points of the Late Paleoindian Lusk Cultural Complex from the Betty Greene site in east-central Wyoming.

to Harris and Betty Greene, initiated an investigation at the new location. The investigators named it the Betty Greene site and coined the term Lusk Cultural Complex after the nearest town, Lusk, Wyoming. Ann Irwin used the results of the site investigation to complete a master’s degree (Greene 1967). Most artifacts were found by Harris and Betty Greene and were returned to them at the end of the excavations. I was able to contact ­Harris and Betty Greene several years later and recorded all artifacts in their possession and had casts made of the projectile points. The Lusk Complex is believed to be the last of the late Paleoindian cultural complexes, dated at about 7,900 years ago. We now believe that there is evidence of Lusk at HG, but not in satisfactory context. A significant part of the assemblage found at the Betty Greene site in good context comprised a sandstone grinding slab (metate) and two manos similar to those commonly recovered in later Archaic contexts, suggesting a possible shift toward a more hunting and gathering lifestyle. There is a good possibility of an intact buried component at the Betty Greene site, making it a strong contender for future research. The site may represent a poorly represented transitional period from Late Paleoindian to EPA.

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Bone Tools and Bone Modification Joe Ben Wheat (1979:138) credited me with introducing the concept of impromptu tools into the analysis of bison bone beds. The context was the prehistoric use of bone breakage: that is, using the resulting points and edges as tools with little if any further modification. My ideas resulted from excavations at the Glenrock Buffalo Jump (Frison, ed. 1970), the Casper site (Frison 1974), the Hawken site (Frison et al. 1976), and the Vore Buffalo Jump (Reher and Frison 1980), all four sites mentioned earlier. One tool type in particular was made from bison humeri and radii (Figure 12.3). I had convinced myself that these were part of a deliberate process on the part of the human butchers; first the distal ends of the bones were removed, and then the ends were deliberately notched or scalloped to leave points that were designed to help in the skinning process. This interpretation went by the wayside when I watched a friend’s German shepherd chew off the articular end of a domestic cow humerus, then place its canine tooth into the soft cancellous bone, and, with a molar tooth against the outside of the bone, pull back and remove a triangular section of long bone. Repeating the process around the circumference of the humerus resulted in a notched end. It also allowed the dog access to more cancellous bone. I had to admit that what I first believed to be human bone modification turned out to be carnivore modification. I looked at bone modifications on spinal and pelvic bones from the Glenrock site (Frison, ed. 1970) and concluded that they were the result of human butchering. The ink was little more than dry on the Glenrock Buffalo Jump report when I came across an elk carcass that had laid out all winter with the coyotes gnawing on it. I suddenly realized that I had completely overlooked carnivore activity as a likely source of bone modification. Lew Binford had a real field day on this one when he looked at my pictures of what I claimed was bone destruction as the result of human butchering and pointed out that they “may be taken as a clinic in canid-modified bone” (Binford 1981:41). I knew this one was coming and could only wait to be forced to eat a lot of crow because my report was in print at the time for all to see. On the other hand, I am not convinced that some of these carnivore-­ chewed bones were not utilized as tools. The points on a carnivore-chewed humerus (Figure 12.3a) and radius (Figure 12.3b) from the Vore site demonstrate what I believe is evidence of possible modification through the use

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Figure 12.3. Carnivore-modified bison humerus (a) and radius (b) from the Vore site (photo by Robert Swaim).

of bones resulting from carnivore activity. In addition, a femur from the Folsom level at the CKM site (Frison 1984a:Figure 12) and one from the Hawken site (Frison et al. 1976:Figure 15d) demonstrate similar characteristics that suggest human use. Unfortunately, bone surfaces do not retain evidence as well as stone, leaving the investigator at a distinct ­disadvantage. Another cautionary tale from the experimental approaches involved in the myriad of bone studies is that a model tested experimentally may be plau­ sible but cannot be demonstrated to be accurate (Binford 1981:84). In my

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Figure 12.4. Photo and drawing of the Dinwoody Tradition pecked figure at the Coal Draw site (photo by Danny Walker; inset drawing by Linda Olson).

own defense, I have to say that my approach to experimental archaeology was to demonstrate the limits of what to expect from a tool, but I never claimed that my pattern of tool use duplicated that of any prehistoric human group. Bone modification studies culminated in an international conference in 1984 hosted by Robson Bonnichsen at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. The event attracted people involved in all aspects of bone modification worldwide. I attended the conference, but with the results of the Glenrock bison kill analysis still fresh in my mind, I did not present a paper. The results of the conference were published in 1989 (Bonnichsen and Sorg 1989).

The Coal Draw Site Zola Van Norman had not returned to the location of her discovery of carved stone tubes since she showed it to me in 1959, but she had recorded several more large, pecked, Dinwoody Tradition figures nearby (Figure 12.4). Access to the area had changed from road construction and land exchanges,

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so she had to guide me back to the location. The site appeared the same as it had over two decades earlier, but I soon picked up a fragment of carved stone of different material than those Zola had recovered. This was enough to convince me that the site deserved further study. The location is on BLM land, so I applied for an excavation permit, which was approved by Mike Bies, the BLM district archaeologist, and investigations were carried out at odd times in the summers of 1989 and 1990. The location was on a slope at the base of the perpendicular sandstone column with the large pecked figure (Figure 3.5, bottom). We quickly recovered two fragments that refit to one of Zola’s, resulting in a nearly complete specimen. A small drainage channel from the top of the bluff disappeared under a large sandstone rock, which had to be reduced to manageable pieces with heavy hammers. Underneath were two pieces of another stone tube that refit to a piece that Zola had recovered earlier, resulting in another nearly complete specimen (Frison and Van Norman 1993:Figure 6). The drainage channel continues under another rock far too large to move or reduce to smaller fragments, and other items may be beneath it. The talus slope is composed mostly of material known as bentonite, which expands when wet and contracts again when dry. The result was a deep crack about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) wide that had filled with sand eroded from the bluff above and windblown debris. At the bottom of the crack were fragments that refit to form most of another tube of light-­ colored material different from any of the others (Frison and Van Norman 1993:Figure 9). In addition we found a section of a root cast 6 centimeters long and 2 centimeters in diameter, with the center drilled out to form a round hole just under 1 centimeter in diameter down through its entire length (Frison and Van Norman 1993:Figure 8a). Four Olivella shells and several pieces of freshwater clamshell with central holes were also recovered in the crack. Refitting of fragments resulted in partial or nearly complete restoration of six of seven items, and close inspection revealed impact fractures from deliberate and unmistakable blows with a heavy object. Four of the items bore intricate and very different incised designs (Figure 12.5). Three are made of material from presently unknown sources, and one is of steatite similar to that found at many local sources. The unbroken one is made of tube-shaped, naturally formed local sandstone and required only minimal grinding to achieve its present shape. This specimen was cast in 2012, and a small red ochre stain was discovered in the center hole. Both ends of the

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Figure 12.5. Two carved and polished stone tubes from the Coal Draw site (photo by Danny Walker).

drilled root cast are missing, so its function can only be speculated. Part of the tube of one specimen (Figure 12.5, left) was intact and packed with red ochre. None retained evidence of any residue indicative of smoking any known substance. The evidence all points toward ritual activity. Although the artifacts were deliberately broken, pieces of each of the original three specimens were close together, suggesting that they may have been in separate containers

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Figure 12.6. (a–e) Detail of incised figures on the stone tube from the Coal Draw site in Figure 12.5, right.

such as pipe bags. A human skull fragment and a molar tooth at the base of the bluff suggest a burial, but blocks of sandstone regularly separate from the bluff; one appears recent, suggesting that a human burial might have been present in a crevice and the tubes were burial offerings that were scattered when the wall collapse occurred. The presence of the tubes amid a concentration of large, extremely detailed, pecked figures suggests ritual activity, but the association of artifacts and pecked figures cannot be proved. All the tubes might have resulted from a single event, or this locale could have been a repository for ritually treated shamanistic materials over an extended period. The interpretation at this time is that they were items used in ritual activities by a shaman or shamans. Along with the material used in manufacture, the incised figures on the largest of the tubes (Figure 12.6) appear alien to any presently recognized on the Plains. I can only say that the Coal Draw site is one of the most interesting, frustrating, and enigmatic of all the projects I have ever encountered in plains–mountain archaeology.

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The Powars II Red Ochre Quarry The Sunrise Iron Ore Mine is located at the southern end of the Hartville Uplift just north of Guernsey, Wyoming, and was a major source of iron ore for the Colorado Fuel and Iron blast furnaces in Pueblo, Colorado, until the mine was shut down in 1980. Mr. Wayne Powars was a teacher at the Sunrise Mine site in the late 1930s. Having worked with Frank H. H. Roberts at the Lindenmeier Folsom site in 1935, and at a Folsom site Powars had found in Colorado, he was familiar with Paleoindian artifacts and found several on a steep talus slope formed by the removal of materials to install a railroad track into the mine. Over a period of about 20 years Mr. Powars collected Paleoindian points and tools from the talus slope. Later on he moved to the Washington, D.C., area where, nearly five decades later, he showed the materials to Dennis Stanford, the Paleoindian specialist at the SI. Powars was unable to give a precise location for the source of his materials other than that it was along the railroad right-of-way. Stanford and I walked the railroad from its entrance to the mining property to the nearby town of Hartville searching for the location, but without success. However, in 1986 Powars returned to Guernsey to attend a school reunion. Upon visiting the mine area, he discovered that the site was in immediate danger of total destruction by federally funded abandoned mine lands reclamation work. An archaeological survey ahead of the reclamation work by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality had failed to notice the site, and only a frantic appeal to state officials managed to save the site from total destruction. The site is located alongside a 1- to 2-meter-thick ochre deposit situated at the western edge of the main ore body, which we believe may have been the only surface exposure of the ochre in Paleoindian times. What remains of the site consists of a 1- to 2-meter-thick exposure of mine tailings about 40 meters long and from 8 to 15 meters wide between the top of the talus slope on the north side of the railroad and a haul road made by the mine-reclamation crew. Artifacts continually erode out of the nearly perpendicular, 1- to 2-meter-thick exposure at the top of the railroad cut and are deposited on the steep talus slope reaching almost to the railroad tracks below. The mine tailings are mixed and present no identifiable systematic stratigraphy.

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The artifact collection from Powars II is exclusively Paleoindian, with complete or fragmentary examples of Clovis, Goshen, Folsom, Midland, HG, and other late Paleoindian cultural complexes identifiable only by point types. Continual working and reworking of the deposits, presumably to recover ochre, made it difficult if not impossible to interpret site stratigraphy. Wear patterns on complete and broken bifaces, flake tools, and bone tools almost certainly reflect digging for recovery of the red ochre. This was probably the source of red ochre in the Paleoindian levels at the nearby HG site. The ochre is difficult to remove from skin and clothing, a quality that may have enhanced its value to the original miners. In addition, red ochre is a preservative and an abrasive. We are most likely unaware of its total significance to those who were mining it in Paleoindian times, although we do know that red ochre is commonly found in both Paleoindian and other contexts. In addition, we are at a loss to explain why no post-­ Paleoindian artifacts have been found among the site deposits (see Stafford et al. 2003). Sunrise Mine is another site that should eventually reveal more about Paleoindian. It only took a day after this manuscript was submitted to the University of Utah Press for this bit of prognostication to materialize. In April 2013, I opened a box of artifacts that Marcel Kornfeld and I had retrieved from a small test excavation there in 1986. I suddenly realized that we had failed to identify two items we recovered as blade cores and at least five blades and one broken and one complete projectile point, all heavily encrusted with red ochre. After removal of the ochre, the blades revealed evidence of use wear suggesting that they were most likely used in extracting the ochre from the matrix. Both points turned out to be Clovis; one was a proximal end, and the other was complete with a reworked distal end. Use wear on the distal end suggests that it may have also been utilized to extract red ochre. I believe that this is the first recorded instance of Clovis blade cores and blades this far north in North America (see Collins 1999:Figure 3.1), although it should not come as a surprise considering there is adequate evidence of Clovis on the Northwestern Plains (Frison and Todd 1986). In addition, it provides a perspective on a Clovis tool kit utilized in a restricted context. These data also aid in elevating the Sunrise Mine site to a position of importance in Plains Paleoindian studies. This development also resulted in a presentation to the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in October 2013 (Frison et al. 2013).

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The Keyhole Reservoir Project in Northeastern Wyoming UW and the NPS conducted excavations at the McKean site along the shore of Keyhole Reservoir in Crook County, Wyoming, in 1951. Earlier survey and testing by Richard Wheeler from the NPS ahead of reservoir construction on the Belle Fourche River located a number of sites in the area. On the basis of his work, Wheeler (1996) named a number of what he considered separate projectile point types, while Mulloy (1954) believed that they were all variations of the single McKean point type, and neither one ever changed his mind. While at the Smithsonian in 1980 I visited with Wheeler, who lived nearby in Alexandria, Virginia. I urged him to organize his field notes into a publishable condition. He managed to accomplish this before he passed away, and they are a valuable reference for researchers in the area (see Wheeler 1996). In 1982, Linda Ward Williams, the archaeologist from the Bureau of Reclamation in Billings, Montana, contacted me to see if I was interested in a new project to do more work at the McKean site and reinvestigate several others recorded by Wheeler. I immediately accepted, and the results were two seasons of fieldwork with Marcel Kornfeld as director and a symposium at the 1983 PAC in Rapid City, South Dakota. The latter brought together a number of interested participants, who evaluated the earlier work, presented papers on the new investigations, and discussed new thinking about the Archaic periods represented at the sites. Much of this was published later in a single volume (Kornfeld and Todd 1985). In retrospect, the Keyhole project was productive, but I believe that more investigation is justified there to better understand Archaic, LP, and Early Historic occupations in northeast Wyoming and southwest South Dakota.

Stone Circles Probably the most visible feature and most controversial and frustrating topic concerning Northwestern Plains archaeology centers around boulders of various sizes and concentrations, arranged in circles with diameters from 2 feet (.6 meters) up to around 100 feet (30 meters). However, the vast majority vary from about 12 feet (4.4 meters) to 22 feet (6.7 meters) in diameter. They occur in number from one to clusters into the hundreds. They are located on a variety of landforms including stream terraces, ridgetops, flattopped mesas and buttes, and open flat areas and in the vicinity of cultural

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activities such as water sources and animal- and lithic-procurement sites. In some instances their presence defies explanation and causes one to think that some might have had ritual significance or possibly resulted from random activities. Among the largest in diameter is the Bighorn Medicine Wheel (mentioned earlier), with a diameter of about 70 feet (21 meters) and with spokes extending outward from the center (Kornfeld et al. 2010:​ Figure 7.32). However, caution is needed in applying the medicine wheel interpretation. I am aware of two large stone circles that were the product of non–Native American activity, and because I was an eyewitness to the construction of one of these eight decades ago, I was able to prevent it from becoming a part of the official archaeological record. The Bighorn Medicine Wheel needs further discussion. It was first reported professionally by Simms (1903), and very little that can be accepted as systematic archaeological investigation has occurred since. Cultural materials recovered within the structure along with a dendrochronology analysis suggest an LP or Historic time depth (Grey 1963). Unfortunately, a good tree ring study has suffered because of questions as to whether or not the tree limb that yielded the date was incorporated into the structure at the time it was built or was displaced or possibly introduced later by artifact hunters. The structure may have resulted from multiple building events over a period of time (Wilson et al. 1981). Another interpretation is that it served as a guide for astronomical observations for ritual activities in prehistoric times (Eddy 1974, 1977). However, most interpretations are based entirely on conjecture. Stone circle study has not been free of controversy. Mulloy, a pioneer in this study area, stated that “the vast bulk of the stone circle complex has nothing whatsoever to do with tipis or any other kind of habitation site” (Mulloy 1958:212). This was contested by Kehoe (1960), who derived his information from farther north, in the Blackfoot area. It also opened the door for others to look into and discuss the subject (see, e.g., Hoffman 1953; Malouf 1961). To me it is easy to interpret the stone circle clusters around the Muddy Creek Bison Kill site complex as related to habitation structures (see Reher 1983), but in the same area there are almost countless stone circles that, to me, provide little if any convincing evidence of ever having held down the cover of a conical tipi. About the only universal requirement for a stone circle is the presence of stones of a certain size within carrying distance. We think of them mostly as holding down the hide cover of a conical pole structure, and

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Figure 12.7. Stone circles or tipi rings covering a small mesa-like butte in central Wyoming.

they may consist of a single contiguous or nearly contiguous sequence of stones (Figure 12.7); but in other cases they contain more, and some have more stones in one direction (Figure 12.8), suggesting insurance against wind gusts, which, from one eyewitness account, were able to flatten Crow Indian lodges (Larocque 1910:27). Post-horse occupation sites concomitant with improved means of transport may have resulted in larger tipis and stone circles. There is divergence from the normal pattern. Two unusual clusters of stone circles in the Shirley Basin of central Wyoming demonstrate large flat and angular stones piled high to form circles over 2 feet (.6 meters) high. A radiocarbon date of 600 rcybp and diagnostic artifacts, including ceramics, suggest that they were probably occupied by a group of LP Shoshoni (Zeimens 1975). To further confuse the issue, stones were placed around some circular cribbed-log structures and remained after the wooden parts disappeared. Stones placed around fire hearths inside the larger circles strongly suggest heat sources for warmth and food preparation. The scarcity of artifacts in most tipi ring sites suggests short-term use and mobility as characterizing prehistoric and historic Native American life on the Plains.

Figure 12.8. Stone circles near the Piney Creek site camping area (top photo by Danny Walker).

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Figure 12.9. Small stone circles at the Piney Creek site.

The issue is frustrating also because of the scarcity of diagnostics that offer clues to the time and possible identity of the humans involved. An interpretation of small stone circles usually around 2 feet (.6 ­meters) in diameter in the processing area at the Piney Creek site was that they were rims for animal hide and/or animal paunch containers used in stone boiling to retrieve bone grease (Figure 12.9). Similar features were found at the Big Goose Creek and Ten Sleep Creek sites. I suggested that four stone circles with inside diameters of a foot (30 centimeters) or less were placed around posts at the Piney Creek tipi ring area to build a scaffold, possibly to protect items from scavengers (Frison 1967:Figure 5). About the only explanation I could come up with for stone circles 8 feet (2.4 meters) to 11 feet (3.4 meters) in diameter placed outside the final drive line and along the rim forming the drop-off at the Glenrock Buffalo Jump was shamanistic activity to successfully bring in the buffalo (Frison, ed. 1970:Figure 1). There appears to be almost no end to the complexities and possibilities inherent in stone circles. Strategies for the investigation of stone circles have not revealed anything new to capture the undivided attention of Plains archaeologists, including me. The investigator can record clusters of circles and utilize the data to postulate ideas of group size involved assuming each circle represents a family. Some researchers suggest a larger circle in a cluster as one used by group leaders (see, e.g., Frison 1967:57, 59). One possible interpretation for a circle outside of a cluster is one possibly used by menstruating women. We now realize that as much activity probably occurred in the area outside the circle as inside and have changed excavation strategies to include larger areas. Stone circles were discussed earlier in Chapter 6 in the context of the Muddy Creek bison-procurement complex.

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Brooke and Louise Turk were longtime sheep ranchers in the southeast Bighorn Mountains and were familiar with the area and its history. Brooke Turk took me to a secluded spot in the mountains where he claimed that at one time, probably about 1920, there were more than 20 conical lodges, many still standing along with several travois poles. Stones were around the perimeters, and many still had remnants of hide underneath. Several badly decomposed piles of bison bones were also in evidence. He claimed that after WWII collectors found the area and carried away most of the lodgepoles along with the travois poles. He said another person took all of the stones because they were covered with bright orange lichen and he wanted them for a fireplace and a garden fence. The only corroboration for his story consisted of several piles of decomposed bison bones and several fragments of lodgepoles. The site suggests a group of Indians with horses that for some reason departed in great haste and abandoned their living quarters. One common suggestion is that it was a camp deserted because of a smallpox epidemic. I can think of no reason to discredit Turk’s story, although the circumstances remain an unsolved mystery. The publication of the 1978 symposium on bison procurement and utilization (Davis and Wilson 1978) is regarded as an extremely useful docu­ ment and often used as a reference. I believe that this inspired the same approach to tipi ring studies and led to a later symposium that amassed a vast amount of data (Davis 1983). No doubt there is still potential for significant information inherent in stone circles that will be found by innovative approaches to research and analysis.

Cairn Lines Possibly even more enigmatic than stone circles are cairn lines. The interpretation of linear lines of stone piles leading to a high bluff with animal bones at the bottom or to a corral with projectile points and butchering tools among the bones appears straightforward — ​they represent part of an animal-procurement complex — ​but other linear lines of cairns are of a different configuration and are difficult to interpret as markers to drive animals into traps. Many of these have been recorded in southern Montana and Wyoming. Some are interpreted as trail markers, and in some instances they are close to present-day roads, but in others they are located where a need for trail markers is difficult to justify. Sometimes large piles of stones are nearly contiguous for a short distance (Figure 12.10) but change to smaller piles separated by varying distances. They may cease for a distance

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Figure 12.10. Part of a cairn line in central Wyoming.

and then begin again with a single or several cairns on a hill or divide that offers good visibility from varying distances in opposite directions. My first encounter with one of these was nearly four decades ago on what is known as the Bad Pass Trail, which lies north of the Bighorn River between the Pryor Mountains in southern Montana and the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming. Because it does wind through some rough country, it may have had both religious and practical significance. A thorough study of the Bad Pass Trail, which is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) in total length, is in print (Loendorf and Brownell 1980).

The Hole in the Wall Trail The area of the southern Bighorn Mountains, Bighorn Basin, and Powder River Basin gained some notoriety from the escapades of the outlaw Butch Cassidy and his cohorts during the latter years of the nineteenth century. However, the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid left many false impressions. On the other hand, over six decades ago I was taken to a cave in the canyon of the Middle Fork of Powder River in the southern Bighorn Mountains that was allegedly one of Cassidy’s hangouts and was widely

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Figure 12.11. “Hole in the Wall” country in north-central Wyoming. The Hole in the Wall cairn line follows along the drainage channel, beginning at the lower left going up to the upper right.

known in the area as Outlaw Cave. Although artifact hunters had searched through the debris, fragments of cloth, buttons, a metal cartridge case, and pieces of leather indicated a recent human presence. One account claims that an early settler in the Bighorn Basin just over the Bighorn Mountain divide from Outlaw Cave found two empty mail sacks that were believed to have been from a train robbery about 300 miles to the south. Lawmen were supposedly on the trail of whoever left the mail sacks, and they followed him to the vicinity of Outlaw Cave. The lawmen believed they had the man cornered, but he managed to escape via a difficult route up a steep rocky slope (Figure 12.11), which later became known as the “Hole in the Wall.” True or not, this is the story as it has been passed down to me through several generations. My wife, June, and I were taking a shortcut through this area one day when we noticed a line of strange-appearing stone piles or cairns alongside a two-track dirt road. A short distance beyond, the line of cairns veered one direction, and the road veered another. I followed the line of cairns on foot for several hundred yards until they ended and, after a gap of about 100 yards, continued along the base of a long, steep hillside. As in the case of the Bad Pass Trail, in one location the cairns were larger and close together and

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farther on resumed their original configuration of smaller piles separated by intervals of several meters. Several days later we returned to study the line of cairns in greater detail. While mapping the cairn line, we noticed a dust cloud in the distance, which finally resolved into a group of riders spurring their horses at top speed. I told June that they surely did not behave like anyone driving livestock; it was a hot day, and the riders made a beeline for a grove of cottonwood trees and were joined by another group of about the same size galloping in from a different direction. Out of curiosity, we went to see what the attraction was; one of the riders came out from the trees to meet us and asked if we had brought the cold beer and steaks for lunch. We told him no, and to his immediate relief, another dust cloud proved to be a truck, which barreled into the area bringing the beer and steaks. June and I were understandably puzzled at this turn of events, and finally one of the riders informed us that they were members of a group known as the “Hole in the Wall Gang,” which congregated there for about two weeks every summer. He said that the members came from all over the United States and Canada. They were obviously well off financially: They were riding good horses with expensive saddles and tack; all wore black hats and the latest in riding gear and carried low-slung Colt .45 Peacemakers in tooled leather holsters with full cartridge belts. It seemed like a true fantasy­land experience. Not being invited to share in the beer and steaks, we went back to our mapping and named the nearly mile-long (1.6-­kilometer) cairn line the Hole in the Wall Trail. As we left the area, we drove by the riders’ camping area, where there were the latest and most expensive motor homes and travel and horse trailers. Sometimes Plains archaeologists get involved in unlikely situations. The next day we went to a different area on the southern end of the Bighorn Mountains and began to map five more of these mysterious cairn lines, but we encountered no more pseudo outlaws. We are still somewhat in the dark concerning the true meaning of these cairn lines, and they may have served practical, ritual, and possibly other purposes. Provided a radiocarbon date of 1,620 ± 85 rcybp (Beta-1078) on charcoal from one of the Bad Pass Trail cairns is reliable (Loendorf and Brownell 1980:32), and there is no reason to doubt its validity, these features have been around for some time. On the other hand, maybe the persons involved merely liked to place rocks in piles, a behavior pattern common to many present-day sheep­herders. The full significance of these cairn lines is still not known or

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understood. Stone circles and stone cairns invite more research, but establishing a viable procedure has proved difficult. These cairn lines and other boulder features created enough interest for researchers to organize a symposium at the Chacmool conference at the University of Calgary and later publish the contributed papers (Wilson et al. 1981).

Stone Quarries Early European settlers in southeast Wyoming noticed excavated pits on top of a hill with the surrounding surfaces littered with pieces of quartzite excavated from the pits. They were unable to conceive that Native Ameri­ cans could have performed the amount and kind of work required to dig the pits, so they assumed that they had to be the result of Spaniards seeking gold and named the area the Spanish Diggings. Northeastern Wyoming early settlers encountered a similar situation in the Bighorn Mountains, arrived at the same conclusion as those farther to the south, and named this area Spanish Point. We are convinced that neither Spaniards nor a search for gold was involved and the quarrying probably resulted from Native Americans either seeking high-quality stone flaking materials or digging for as-yet-undisclosed reasons. Having been raised on a western ranch well before the advent of power-­ operated equipment, I am no stranger to picks, shovels, and crowbars used for digging postholes and trenches, and even though the above tools are barely recognized by many present workers, they were vastly superior to the stone, bone, and wooden digging tools we assume were the only ones available to the original excavators at the Spanish Diggings and Spanish Point sites. They had to be highly motivated people to penetrate into and remove the overburden to gain access to the desired quartzite and chert rock below. Much of the quartzite around the quarry pits at Spanish Diggings is of satisfactory quality that modern flint knappers collect what they want without further digging. I believe we must assume that for a reason or reasons, the prehistoric diggers were highly motivated, possibly toward continually seeking higher-quality materials or for some other objective. Some of the chert materials at the Spanish Point site attracted present-­ day rock collectors who brought in power equipment to remove overburden and loosen nodules from the matrix. In the process, they left profiles of prehistoric quarry pits along with bone and elk antler digging tools (Figure 12.12). Today, the Spanish Point cherts are sought after for cutting

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Figure 12.12. Prehistoric quarry pits and elk antler digging tool (directly above the centimeter scale at top, left; and see inset) at the Spanish Point site.

and polishing into semiprecious jewelry and by flint knappers who regard the material as one of the best known. Apparently prehistoric knappers had similar values and, as at the Spanish Diggings, were willing to put forth monumental procurement efforts. The above two sites are among the best known among hundreds of others demonstrating prehistoric lithic

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procurement, and new sites are still being found every year. In fact, in following up on a tip from a local collector in 2012, a quartzite quarry was found in the Laramie Range in east-central Wyoming similar in extent to the Spanish Diggings in southeast Wyoming. Leslie Davis (1982) performed excavations in what became known as the Schmitt Chert Mine near the headwaters of the Missouri River in southwest Montana and recovered an assemblage of quarrying tools similar to those from Spanish Point. He discovered also what I had discovered: that many prehistoric human stone quarries often provided protection and access into underground cracks and crevices and thus became rattle­snake dens.

Steatite Sources Less widespread but still indicative of prehistoric and early historic quarrying efforts were those to obtain soapstone or steatite. This material was used mostly in LP and Early Historic times to carve into vessels, pipes, beads, and other items, although it occasionally appears as an atlatl weight or bead in older contexts. Steatite is a relatively heavy material with poor structural qualities but is heat resistant. Construction of a vessel had to be a slow reduction process with extra care to avoid breakage. Shoshoni in the Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah area are believed to have been the ones who carved a distinctive type of bowl with a flanged base (Figure 12.13, top). Although the material is limited to a few natural outcrops, considerable efforts were expended in quarrying, and probably because of their weight, partially shaped bowls are occasionally recovered at varying distances from sources (see Frison 1982f ). A very similar vessel shape (Figure 12.13, bottom) is found also in what is known as Intermountain Tradition fired pottery (Mulloy 1958:157), also believed to be of Shoshonean origin. The Eden-Farson pronghorn site (see Chapter 9) produced the same ceramics (Frison 1971b). It was a common belief among many early prospectors that there was an association between steatite and gold deposits, and this resulted in mine shafts and other historic disturbance of many steatite deposits. There was a flurry of interest in steatite following WWII. The military and NASA were experimenting with missiles and searching for heat-resistant material for nose cones. I took one of the people involved to a location my father had filed on as an asbestos claim before he was killed in 1924. The material had the necessary heat-resistant qualities but was too heavy and structurally

Figure 12.13. Carved steatite vessel (top) and ceramic vessel (bottom).

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Figure 12.14. Canid skulls from the Boxelder Creek site (top) and the Vore site (bottom).

unsound for further consideration. As a result, interest in steatite ended abruptly, and I was never contacted again.

Dogs and Wolves Some of the evidence of what may be domesticated dogs in North America has been found in Plains bison kill sites and in one deliberate burial containing canid skulls. Part of a canid maxilla was recovered in the Folsom component at the AB, another came from the Cody Complex at the Horner site, and mandibles of one individual appeared at the Hawken site. The LP Vore Buffalo Jump produced five well-preserved canid skulls, which aroused enough interest to initiate serious study. The wear on canine and carnassial teeth was enough to suggest that they might have been domesti­ cated dogs because it would have been difficult for a wolf to survive in the wild with canine teeth worn to the extent of those from the Vore site (Figure 12.14, bottom). This led to further consideration that the wear might

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have been deliberate to reduce the danger to the humans handling the animals. Maurice Bush, a rancher living in the south part of the Bighorn Basin, noticed the top of two bones exposed along the south bank of Boxelder Creek not far from his ranch house. The bones proved to be the tops of dorsal spines from bison thoracic vertebrae placed across each other and resting on six canid skulls nested together side by side, ventral side down. Bush carefully removed them, and the next time I was in that part of the country, he invited me in to see them. I could see immediately that they were unusual specimens, and he gave them to me to become part of our UW faunal collections. Four of the largest demonstrate fractured frontals, suggesting that they might have been deliberately killed by blows to the head (Figure 12.15). With the addition of these canid skulls, there were enough to provide a large study sample. It was almost certain that the canine and carnassial teeth of the Boxelder Creek specimens had been deliberately reduced, suggesting cultural rather than natural wear (Figure 12.14, top). The burial by itself suggested a strong element of ritual activity. Discriminant function analysis of these and modern wolf skulls suggested that the archaeological specimens were probably wolf–dog hybrids (Walker and Frison 1982). More canid skulls have appeared since this study and have helped to validate this conclusion and continue to add to a better understanding of Plains wolf– dog relationships.

Conical Wooden-Pole War Lodges, Tipis, and Cribbed-Log Living Structures War lodges were used by Plains Indians in Early Historic times as a base for raiding enemy horses. They were built by horse-raiding parties in secluded locations to avoid detection by the enemy but close enough to enemy territory to use as a living structure while scouting the enemy camp and planning their strategy for stealing horses. They were well constructed and weathertight to allow for inclement weather (see Ewers 1944). The lodge retrieved for the BBHC (Figure 11.1, left) was in a thick patch of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and was only revealed when beaver moved in and cut down all the living trees. It is of much sturdier construction than many other conical pole lodges that were temporary living structures.

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Figure 12.15. Canid skulls from the Boxelder Creek site.

I encountered another likely example while on a survey in 1984 on Crystal Creek, a drainage of the Gros Ventre River in the Bridger–Teton National Forest in northwest Wyoming. Although at that time it was beginning to deteriorate (Figure 11.1, right), it had been carefully constructed using large, straight, lodgepole pine logs. It is relatively large, with a maximum inside diameter of 13.7 feet (4.14 meters) and maximum head space of

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Figure 12.16. Conical pole tipis in 1920 near the old Frison family ranch (courtesy Washakie County Museum, Wyoming).

just over 9 feet (2.7 meters). It required nearly a full day of crisscrossing a thick patch of pine timber before I finally stumbled across it (Frison 1984b). I remember riding through a grove of quaking aspens with my grandfather when I was about six years old when he pointed to a conical-shaped pole structure with an opening to the east. The location was in a shady spot alongside running water at about 7,500 feet (2,286 meters) in elevation, and nearby was another similar structure. They remained intact for several more years until cattle found them; they would put their heads in the openings to rub against the standing poles. My grandfather claimed that when he first visited the same area, probably between 1902 and 1904, he had counted 13 lodges. In 1920, a road was established through Ten Sleep Canyon on the eastern slope of the Bighorn Mountains, and two similar conical lodges (Figure 12.16) were photographed in a different patch of quaking aspen nearby. I recorded as many of these lodges as I could locate, fully aware that they would soon disappear. Another tendency was to place the lodges close to a large fir tree, presumably to take advantage of the added protection provided by the thick, widespread lower tree branches. The fir trees eventually die, and the lodges are either crushed by the tree if it falls in their direction or left

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Figure 12.17. Cribbed-log living structure in a secluded patch of timber in northwest Wyoming.

unprotected if it falls in a different direction and thus at the mercy of the elements and soon disappear, with no evidence of their former presence. Multisided structures made of logs laid horizontally are also among the wooden structures that are fast disappearing. These occurred singly, in twos or threes, and in larger concentrations. A group of five was found in an isolated patch of fir trees in a small but deep canyon in the Absaroka Mountains in northwest Wyoming. One was remarkably well preserved (Figure 12.17). It was a partially dome-shaped habitation with a flat top, and the entrance was through the top. Except for a pair of elk antlers, there was an almost total lack of artifact material in and around the structures, even though several apparent habitation levels were detected on one lodge floor. I believe that they were the result of the late Shoshonean occupation of that area and that the inhabitants were attempting to survive undetected by other human groups, but I cannot understand the scarcity of artifacts that would have provided a better understanding of their lifestyle.

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I have always been intrigued with the perishable parts of the archaeological record and find it sad that the wealth of perishable evidence of earlier inhabitants including animal traps and religious and living structures is rapidly disappearing and that very little if anything can be done to slow or reverse the trend. I do not believe that we have put enough effort into retrieving more of these resources and preserving them for future generations. I was in favor of retrieving the conical pole war lodge (Figure 11.1, left) for the BBHC in Cody, Wyoming, but I was not able to convince them to retrieve one of the many mountain sheep traps. After a lapse of 30 years, I returned to the first one I had visited (Figure 9.1). The deterioration over that period of time is ample evidence that their survival is limited not only by the slower processes of weathering but by the ever-present threat of wildfires, especially ones like those that burned much of YNP in 1988 and consumed many perishable structures. One consolation is that we have managed to compile a good photographic record of the ones that are still intact.

A Sinew-Backed, Reflexed Mountain Sheep Horn Bow Earlier I brought up the subject of Nick Wilson, who as a young boy spent two years with the Wind River Shoshoni Indians. In addition to his other experiences, he also mentioned bows that were made of mountain sheep horns. However, he claimed that these were highly desired but relatively rare and that most bows were made of white cedar ( Juniperus sp.). This is confirmed by the presence of still-living juniper trees with long strips of sapwood removed, taken earlier for bow manufacture (Figure 12.18, top), but my main interest concerned those made of mountain sheep horn. At the time, I had seen mountain sheep horns but could not in any way conceive how they might function as a bow. I was frustrated by not being able to locate one in local or regional museums. Actual specimens were apparently rare, and I was continually on the lookout for one I could examine closely to learn more of its construction. It was several decades later before I was able to examine one, which was allegedly recovered from a dry rockshelter in the higher elevations of the Gros Ventre Mountains in northwestern Wyoming (Frison 1980). It was nearly intact, but the centerpiece across the center was missing, allowing a clear view of the plug, also made of mountain sheep horn, holding the two pieces together.

Figure 12.18. Living juniper tree missing strips of sapwood taken for bow manufacture (top) and drawings of a mountain sheep horn, sinew-backed bow from a cave in the Gros Ventre Mountains in northwest Wyoming (bottom, a–d).

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Manufacture of a mountain sheep horn bow must have required patience and knowledge of a complex and exacting set of operations. Hot springs are common in the area, and, according to Wilson, the horns were placed in a hot spring until pliable, and strips were then cut from the curve of the horn for its entire length. A bow required two strips, each cut from a single horn, probably and preferably a pair, and joined together at the center with a peg, also of sheep horn. After the strips were properly shaped, sinew was glued to the back side. It was missing, but judging from a color change, there was undoubtedly a thick, flattened piece of horn held in place with sinew over the center. In braced position the sheep horn was on the belly side of the bow (Figure 12.18, bottom). According to another account, it required two months to complete a horn bow (Dominick 1964:155–156). Wilson mentioned also that heat from a fire as well as a hot spring could be used to soften the horn enough to be brought to the desired shape. William Mulloy and I discussed mountain sheep horn bows on several occasions, and he believed that the Shoshonean, sinew-backed, mountain sheep horn bow was derived from those found among the Eskimo. If so, the Eskimo may have acquired their idea from the Asiatic composite bow (see Hamilton 1970). This could be the case, but I am unaware of supporting evidence in the long stretch of country between the arctic and the central Rocky Mountains. I believe that we need to see and study more authentic examples of mountain sheep horn, sinew-backed bows to better understand their possible origin and the development of their manufacturing technology. Following up on this idea, Bill Holm (1982) presents what appears to be a detailed and successful procedure for the manufacture and use of a mountain sheep horn bow. My interest in mountain sheep horn bows never ceased and continued to be a subject I wanted to return to if the proper conditions arose. Over a period of several years, I was encouraged to contact a man, Mr. Tom Lucas of Dubois, Wyoming, who was reported to have manufactured several of these items and was familiar with their performance. I was finally able to contact him in summer 2013, and I soon realized here was a master craftsman. It soon became clear that manufacturing a sinew-backed mountain sheep horn bow was a long and detailed process requiring a vast reservoir of slowly accumulated knowledge combined with the ability to use tools and the patience to execute the finest details, reflecting the know-how of a true craftsperson. In addition, it requires a person who realizes that when the pressure reaches a certain point, the project has

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to be shelved and continued at a later time. For me, the experience provided a new conceptual picture of the Shoshoni Indian who had to be an apprentice for a long period of time to acquire the expertise to produce one of these remarkable pieces of weaponry. The performance of these items also confirms the statements that these were highly prized and preferred over the more common sinew-backed wooden bow.

The Great Divide Basin Project in Southwest Wyoming My early background as an artifact collector has always influenced my attitude toward this group in terms of the worthwhile contributions many of them have made to archaeology. I have found that most are willing to divulge information on what they have found and where they found it. They have a distinct advantage in having acquired the needed familiarity with the country involved. Admittedly, their recovery techniques rarely approach the ideal situation, but in many cases, their information has led to the discovery of many important sites. I do believe that the positive contributions of this group outweigh the negative ones. The Wyoming Basin (Figure 12.19) has been an attractive area for artifact collectors since the beginning of the twentieth century. Alan R. Wimer has a background as a professional livestock-predator trapper in that area and became interested in Paleoindian artifacts found there. He entered the UW anthropology program in the 1990s. He was searching for a thesis topic, and I was able to negotiate a three-way agreement with the BLM, the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist, and the UW Department of Anthropology to allow Wimer to analyze five Paleoindian surface collections from the Wyoming Basin and use the data for a master’s thesis (Wimer 2001). In the end, all parties agreed that it was a project with excellent results. Within the Wyoming Basin are several smaller basins. The Continental Divide splits at the south end of the Wind River Mountains and forms the periphery of the Great Divide Basin, occupying an area of about 4,200 square miles (10,800 square kilometers) (Fenneman 1931:134–136; Figure 12.19). This basin drains internally, and at its lowest point, commonly referred to as the Chain Lakes, in an area of about 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) are four mixed-component surface sites, each producing Paleo­ indian diagnostics from Folsom to terminal Paleoindian. Two of these, the Scoggin Chain Lakes site (48SW13622) and the Roby site (48SW13623),

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Figure 12.19. Map of Wyoming showing basins and uplifts.

were utilized by Wimer in his master’s thesis. William Scoggin, a dentist in Rawlins, Wyoming, and his father discovered and collected the materials from the former location (Figure 12.20), and Ben Roby, also of Rawlins, collected the materials from the latter. Recently, artifacts from two more sites appeared that were collected in the same area. These sites, the Ventling site (48SW18433) and the Logan site (48SW432), contain the same range of Paleoindian diagnostics as the former two. Scoggin acquired the artifacts from the four sites and made them available for study. In August 2013, an article on the four sites had been accepted for publication in PA. Overall, the Great Divide Basin is characterized by low topographic relief, few prominent landmarks, a lack of trees, almost constant wind, and an endless expanse of sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and greasewood. Domestic cattle and sheep graze the area along with feral horses, elk, mule deer, and pronghorns. The four surface sites demonstrate an unusual amount of Paleo­indian

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Figure 12.20. Paleoindian artifacts from the Scoggin site. Folsom (a–e), Midland (b, g), Goshen (h–i), Hell Gap (k), Scottsbluff (l), and Late Paleoidian (m–r) (drawing by Marion Huseas).

activity concentrated in a small area, and further research is needed to explain their presence. The subsurface could contain faunal materials, and geological studies might produce stratigraphic evidence and better define the chronology of lake levels, dune activity, and soil formation, which might eventually be correlated to the Paleoindian complexes presently represented only by typological studies of artifacts. At this time we have to assume that beginning with Folsom, something attracted humans to a very limited part of the Great Divide Basin located within the larger Wyoming Basin and persisted for an estimated 2,500–3,000 years. It is an interesting problem and one that presents a challenge for future study.

‹ 13 › Some Lingering and Final Thoughts

From the time I started investigating animal bone beds in the 1960s until the late 1980s, my idea of a good day was excavating in one of these features and watching the bones emerge from the surrounding matrix. This required long hours in a kneeling position and gradually took a toll on my knees. On the last day of fieldwork in early fall at the UTM site in the Middle Park area of Colorado, as I got out of the trench, the intense pain in my knees informed me that this was enough. This was my last involvement in an archaeological site as a principal investigator. It was time for me to withdraw from fieldwork and allow younger generations to take over the work in the trenches. Retirement is an emotional milestone. One day you are an integral part of a functional university department, but after the retirement party, the handshakes, and the presentation of the plaque to hang on the wall at home, you wake up the next morning and find yourself on the outside looking in. The sudden change in status requires a period of adjustment, but I was fortunate to have the HG and MLC site materials to analyze and prepare for final publication. In retrospect, at retirement time, I calculated I had spent about the same number of years as a university professor as I had living on a ranch. The five years I spent in undergraduate and graduate school revealed an entirely different view of archaeology compared with past experiences as an artifact collector and an outsider looking in. Those five years were difficult for my wife and daughter, but their tolerance and never-wavering support have to be acknowledged, and my appreciation has to be expressed. Without them, there would have been little incentive to continue. 258

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There is no doubt that my graduate school years were during a p ­ eriod of change in the perception of the discipline of anthropology. It was impossible not to detect the resistance to change by the older group or the establishment and the demands of the new group to start to seriously consider moving ahead with a new and different approach. I remember similar arguments with my uncles when they were lukewarm about new ideas and technological improvements that could have been applied to the ranching and livestock business. On the other hand, I doubt that following my suggestions would have resulted in changing the final outcome of the ranching venture. For me, it was simply being in the right place at the right time to be initiated into High Plains archaeology. It was not the result of good planning or foresight on my part. Agriculturalists along the Missouri River in Nebraska and the Dakotas and its tributaries were the main focus in Plains archaeology at the time, and beyond this was a largely untouched area with a wealth of prehistory open for exploitation. It was kind of the last frontier in American archaeology in the lower 48 states, and the door was open wide for someone with an innovative approach. I firmly believe that my background living in the area over a period of years at all times of the year when the cushion between human survival and the environment was much thinner than at present helped supply me with that kind of an approach. On the other hand, I have to admit that this argument falls on deaf ears today. The timing was good in other ways. Research funding was favorable, and the area proved to have a number of archaeological sites waiting to be revealed, worthy of funding, and containing data that established a prehistoric chronology that has withstood the test of time quite well. I find it difficult to comprehend that three major Paleoindian sites — ​the Hanson Folsom site, the Colby Mammoth site, and the MLC site — ​were discovered on the same ground I rode over on many occasions looking for cattle during my ranching years. I believe also that my background with both domestic and wild animals was an advantage in developing strategies to analyze and interpret the prehistoric procurement strategies that were utilized. No successful domestic livestock operator would buy animals without looking at their teeth to determine their age and be able to predict how many years it would be before they would have to be replaced. These same ideas fueled the needs of analyzing prehistoric animal kills.

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Figure 13.1. Signing the “book” at the National Academy of Sciences. George C. Frison (left) with NAS Home Secretary Peter H. Raven on April 25, 1998 (photo courtesy of National Academy of Sciences).

I derive some satisfaction from having started in a three-person department teaching undergraduate courses and gradually expanding to more space, more faculty, and better facilities and establishing a master’s program that prepared a number of students for acceptance at many different Ph.D. departments. Many of these students have moved on to highly respected positions in anthropology and other disciplines. I tried to establish a fieldwork program that trained students to retrieve information from the ground, keep good records, and prepare materials from the field for transport to the laboratory in the best possible conditions for analysis. I believe also that my earlier efforts were instrumental in the recent realization of a new anthropology building at UW with up-to-date facilities and an increase in faculty that allows it to offer a Ph.D. program. In retrospect, the outstanding event of my retirement years was a phone call in 1997 informing me of my election to the NAS. Signing the book at the 135th annual meeting in Washington, D.C., during my initiation was the moment of a lifetime. My emotion at being the first person from Wyoming to receive this honor brought a somewhat questioning look from

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Figure 13.2. Celebrating the event with daughter, Carol (left), and wife, June (photo by Jeri Zeimens).

the academy secretary, Peter Raven, who handed me the pen and watched me sign my name (Figure 13.1). Afterward I celebrated the event with my daughter, Carol, and my spouse, June (Figure 13.2), along with several close friends. UW is still willing to allow me space and facilities to complete projects long overdue. I managed for some time to cope with the new technology, but the changes began to come about too often. However, I can always plead for help and get someone to restore my computer file that suddenly disappeared. For some time I resented former students going through my publications and questioning my conclusions, but I soon realized that I should be pleased to know that they actually believed my ideas were worth pursuing and that they had acquired enough knowledge to offer rational arguments. I always enjoyed students, but in the present situation I do not

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have to teach, I do not have to grade papers, and I do not have to go to faculty meetings. If I get frustrated with the computer, there are bison skulls and other faunal materials that need curation, and this soon eases the stress. The truth is I believe that I live in what can probably be described as the best of possible worlds for an emeritus faculty. To me, it sure beats putting together picture puzzles down at the senior center. What does the crystal ball reveal about the future of Plains–central Rocky Mountain archaeology? Happily, there appears now to be an improving relationship among academics, cultural resource managers, and contract archaeologists. I emphasize one more time that the chronological chart in Figure 9.10 is only a statement of what I think we know, and much of what is there is in need of clarification. I will only offer a sampling: Is there a pre-Clovis in this area? If so, I have not seen any convincing evidence, although in certain parts of North and South America the evidence for pre-Clovis appears strong and difficult to refute. I do not yet understand the relationships, if any, among Goshen, Folsom, and Plainview. I find Clovis caches of stone and bone artifacts difficult to explain, and there is still confusion concerning the numerous Late Paleoindian groups. And how do we explain the dearth of biological evidence for Paleoindian-age humans. Students today are subjecting our earlier site assemblages, databases, and conclusions to a new technology. Fortunately parts of most of the sites that produced these data are still intact and available for future research. The areas of uncertainty are not limited to Paleoindian. As alluded to earlier, even as a child I was fascinated by bison skulls, chipped-stone artifacts around water sources, and piles of debitage around stone flaking material sources at the higher altitudes. This ultimately resulted in research into high-altitude wooden animal traps and living structures. The Lookingbill site (see Chapter 8) forced us to deal with a deeply stratified, high-altitude situation and the problems of maintaining a field camp in a situation different from that in any of our earlier sites. In the two decades since then, more interest has shifted to the high altitudes, with definitely positive results (see Wingerson 2009–2010). The disastrous 1988 fires both destroyed and exposed much archaeological evidence, and this, along with better means of access and improved technology, should provide a broad base for future high-altitude research. During the 2012 field season I helped excavate a site about 1,100 years old with ceramics, chipped-stone tools and weaponry, and bison-processing features that do not fit at all well in our chronological scheme or presently

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known Late Archaic–age cultural complexes. The above two situations constitute only a tantalizing bit of what should offer a challenge to present and future students. There are seemingly never-ending research opportunities for the future, and I hope that they take full advantage of the opportunities present. I have to reflect back on the individuals who spent their careers establishing a foundation that I have had the privilege of building on, and I would like to believe that they would look favorably at the present results. I hope that our present crop of students will someday be able to say the same. Although the relations among academics, cultural resource managers, contract archaeologists, industry, and others have improved significantly, there is one legacy of the decades of uneasy relationships among these entities I believe should be resolved. There is a veritable mountain of what is commonly referred to as the “gray literature,” consisting of reports of surveys of mining claims, pipelines, highways, reservoirs, and oil well pads, among others, that contain valuable archaeological data; but they are difficult to extract because they are too often interspersed between voluminous pages of irrelevant content and hidden in obscure filing systems. I argue strongly that it would be a valuable service to scientific archaeology to have these data made more available. It is a rare social occasion that someone doesn’t come up with the query: What caused you to decide to abandon ranching life and become an archaeologist? To avoid a lengthy discussion I usually rely on a quote from Glyn Daniel in which William Cunnington, a disciple of English antiquarianism, describes himself digging barrows on Salisbury Plain in 1803 “in the hopes of meeting something which might supersede conjecture” (Daniel 1952:30). This short, concise statement adequately covers the subject and does away with attempts to explain something that developed over many years and consisted of an accumulation of minor events that eventually evolved into a major decision. On numerous occasions I have regretted not becoming more fluent in at least one other language. In 1974 I was one of a group invited to present papers at the XLI Congresso Internacional de Americanistas in Mexico City. It was my first participation in an international conference, and it came as somewhat of a surprise that, except for most of the Americans, the participants could communicate in different languages. It was disconcerting to be fully aware that a person I was talking to was fluent in English but refused to resort to it, apparently somewhat contemptuous of my inability to discuss the subject in his or her language. Consequently, I have always

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tried to impress on students to take the time and effort to become fluent in another language and not be satisfied with just enough reading ability to grasp the main points of an article in an unfamiliar language. In addition, there are new teaching methods that decrease the time needed to acquire speaking ability.

June Carolyn June Glanville was born in Crosby, Wyoming, in 1924. By the time she was able to walk, the Carolyn part was dropped, and she went by June for the remainder of her life. Crosby was a coal-mining town in the southern Bighorn Basin and at one time boasted a population of over 1,000. The coal mine was closed after it flooded in the early 1930s, and the Glanville family moved to the Ten Sleep, Wyoming, area close to the Frison ranch. June was a coal miner’s daughter and was always proud of it. Following the move to the Ten Sleep area, June’s father, Earl (Blue) Glanville, worked in construction projects in Montana and Wyoming. During WWII, he worked on the Alaska Highway, and after the war he became a maintenance foreman in the Wyoming Highway Department. June’s only sibling, William Glanville, graduated from Ten Sleep High School in May 1940. A few days later, he was accidentally killed while on a camping trip. It was a devastating blow to the Glanville family: they moved temporarily to Billings, Montana, to be closer to relatives but returned to their Ten Sleep home a short time later. June and I were classmates, and we both graduated from high school in 1942. June eventually spent most of WWII as a secretary in the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., another part of her life of which she was very proud. At the same time, I was in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific area. I had inherited my father’s share of the Frison ranch, and when June and I were married in 1946 I decided to continue there. In retrospect, I believe that June had misgivings about this, not so much about ranch life but about the fact that she was entering into an uncertain relationship with my uncles and their families. June was acclimated to 9–to–5 work schedules and a weekly paycheck, a situation not to be found in ranch life, with its need for constant attention to the needs of livestock and growing crops. Income also came at intervals and not always at the end of each month. However, we both enjoyed hunting and fishing and the time spent in the mountains in spring and summer working with livestock. In addition she was always tolerant of my artifact collecting.

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June was definitely in favor of my decision to return to school. Her parents were supportive also, but I know that they would have preferred to see me seek a different profession than teaching in the social sciences and excavating in archaeological sites. However, they were pleased when I was hired at UW, and by this time they had retired and spent winters in Arizona and summers in Wyoming. We would visit them in Arizona during Christmas vacation, and June began to look forward to my retirement and spending the winter months there. On the other hand, we both looked forward to summer field projects. She had no desire to get down on her knees and excavate bone beds but, rather, became camp manager and earned a legendary reputation as a camp cook. She liked the students, and this was reciprocated in many ways; she was strict but fair and was always sympathetic to their needs. I retired from teaching in 1995 at age 70 but continued my interest in summer field projects. June did not like Wyoming winters and wanted to spend at least part of the winter in a warmer place. During the winter of 1995–1996, we spent nearly four months in Tucson, Arizona. I kept busy by working on the MLC final publication, and June was involved with activities with newly found friends. We found time also to enjoy the desert country. June really adapted to the “snowbird” life more than I, and we tried it in moderation for a few more years. Rather than spend the entire winter in Arizona, we would make regular trips to our Laramie, Wyoming, home. June was a very orderly person. She took care of our finances and could always account for every penny. Our tax man pointed her out as a model to follow in keeping records for income tax purposes. Two years after my retirement she came to me one day in an unusual frame of mind and told me that while she was shopping she had had difficulty locating her car in the parking lot. I did not pursue the matter further, but about a year later she told me that the record keeping was becoming too complex for her to continue and she would not do it anymore. She was an accomplished bridge player and enjoyed it immensely, but she left her bridge group because she could no longer keep track of her cards and other members were critical of her actions. By this time, we both sensed something was amiss, and we consulted our family doctor, who performed simple tests and informed us that June could be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. He referred us to a specialist, who confirmed the diagnosis and recommended a treatment that might slow the progress, though not reverse it. In her case it was totally ineffective. June’s condition steadily deteriorated until, on April 17, 2011, she

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tried to get out of bed and collapsed. I could not care for her by myself any longer, and the only alternative was to place her in a round-the-clock care facility. She was never able to walk again by herself and spent her days while awake in a wheelchair. I believe that she recognized me occasionally, but I could watch these rare moments fade. I was pleased to see her face light up when our daughter, Carol, flew up from Tucson for a last visit. June and I had loved our earlier years in the Bighorn Mountains and always made a trip or two there every year to revisit our old haunts. On one of those trips she asked me to stop and she pointed to a spot where she told me she wanted her ashes scattered. August 28, 2011, was one of those rare late-summer days with no wind and a cloudless blue sky, when Carol and I along with a few close friends carried out her wishes: Adios mi amor, y vaya con Dios.

Epilogue Several days later, I took my daughter, Carol, over part of the same road my grandparents traveled when they moved from Colorado to Wyoming in 1901. Part of this road in Wyoming is still unpaved, but it is much improved from its condition 11 decades earlier. An afternoon thunderstorm overtook us on the unpaved road on the divide between the Bighorn and Wind River basins, and, not having a four-wheel-drive vehicle, we were forced to wait over an hour until the roadbed dried. It was an opportunity for us to walk to a higher location and look back at part of the area where I was raised and spent my ranching years. I could also see the location of several sites I had excavated as a professional archaeologist. To me, these were milestones in one part of what I claim is an unusual career: being able to exploit totally different resources for totally different purposes in the same geographic area. By this time the roadbed had dried sufficiently to continue our journey. Walking back to our vehicle, I spotted a large prairie rattler stretched out on a bare spot to catch the warm sun and dry out after the rain. Contra the attitude toward rattlesnakes during my younger years, we did not disturb him, knowing that he presented no danger to anyone. As we got in the vehicle, we noticed three pronghorns watching us with the intense curiosity common to that species. As the vehicle started, they ran a short distance and started to graze in a patch of grass. Farther on I pointed out an eagle nest in a niche in a steep cliff that June had spotted several years earlier. The young

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eagles had left the nest, but from the shrill cries in the distance, we knew that they were still in the vicinity, under the watchful eyes of their parents. In addition this was an opportune time to reflect on the discomforts endured when negotiating the same road in wagons with metal-covered wooden wheels and a passenger seat with no more than stiff metal springs to soften the continual pounding from the rocks and rough spots. We could have taken an alternate route with modern paved roads, but I wanted Carol to see three of the locations where I knew my grandparents had camped for the night without the luxury of a clean bed and hot shower. It required only an afternoon to travel over 200 miles of their route, whereas, in 1901, they were able to travel only 10 to 15 miles in a day. It was a sobering experience for both of us, but we could see that the character of the landscape in the Wyoming part of the 1901 trip had not changed much. It is still a land of sagebrush-covered flats with occasional juniper-covered ridges and mountains in the distance. Most noticeable at present are the results of energy extraction for uranium, petroleum, and natural gas. In 1901, my grandparents crossed the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, but Interstate 80 today, with its almost solid line of trucks and cars, was far beyond the realm of anyone’s imagination. The temperature was hot, water along the way was scarce, and at the end of the 400-mile trip in 1901, the tree-lined Ten Sleep Creek valley and the running stream with the snow-covered peaks of the Bighorn Mountains in the background had to be a most welcome sight. Water is still scarce, but unlike the early travelers, we were traveling in a comfortable, air-conditioned vehicle carrying a large cooler filled with water and food. The comforts of traveling may have changed, but the country remains about the same. Relatively speaking, it is a harsh and unforgiving country to live in, but it is fairly good livestock country and is home to a number of good archaeological sites — ​and consequently, it is the one for which I reserve a soft spot in my heart.

The World War II Memorial I was aware that the WWII Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., was completed and wanted to visit it in person. Recently, volunteer efforts have provided for what have become known as Honor Flights for WWII veterans to make the trip to the memorial. A veteran who had made the trip earlier sent me the application forms and said that it was an opportunity

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I should not miss. My application was approved, and on October 11, 2011, 120 Wyoming veterans, along with caretakers (guardians) to keep us out of trouble, flew from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to the airport in Dulles, Virginia, where we attended a banquet and spent the night. The next morning, a police escort took us to the WWII Memorial and then the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue. After a last stop at the Iwo Jima memorial for a group picture, we boarded the plane and flew back to Cheyenne. It was an emotional experience that provided a large measure of closure to a time that was paramount in the lives of WWII veterans. Unfortunately, this opportunity was impossible for those no longer with us and possible for only a token number of the millions still living who deserve it. The next year I was able to participate in another outstanding event. Marcel Kornfeld of UW and Bruce Huckell from the University of New Mexico organized a symposium entitled “Stones, Bones, and Profiles” for C. Vance Haynes and me at the seventy-­seventh annual meeting of the SAA in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a memorable occasion for both of us. I had not been able to attend the annual meetings for several years and saw many colleagues I had not seen in the meantime and missed others no longer with us. I have been questioned many times about why I did not go back to ranching after retirement. I kept up contacts with the owners of the old family ranch in northern Wyoming and stopped by occasionally to discuss cattle prices, range conditions, and the future of the livestock industry. This tempted me to acquire a small place with a few cattle and maintain i­ nterests in both ranching and archaeology. On the other hand, I remembered feeding livestock in below zero weather, chopping open water holes, calving and lambing during March blizzards, and worrying about the prospects of grass on the summer range. In addition, I could see that ranching had changed as much as archaeology in the past half century and it would be more than a matter of starting up where I left off a half-century ago. When I cautiously brought up the subject to my spouse, her withering look sent a clear message that I would be better off to forget the idea. Consequently, I made the decision to stay with archaeology.

A Final Thought on Bison In retrospect, I have many favorable memories of long past big game hunting and guiding activities. As mentioned earlier, hunting was more of a sideline but it produced additional income and also provided a bigger food

Figure 13.3. Male Bison antiquus skull from the 11,000-year-old Casper Hell Gap–​ age site upon exposure (top) and after curation (bottom). Maximum horn core spread is 38.25 inches (97.2 centimeters) (bottom photo by Marcel Kornfeld).

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supply. Although I was more of a meat hunter than a trophy hunter, I always admired outstanding sets of horns and antlers. The same was true when I gathered bison skulls that were common before they became c­ ollectors’ items. Some of this carried over into archaeology and I always savored the moments when skulls of animals emerged from bone beds that resulted from prehistoric human hunting episodes. The 11,000-year-old Casper Hell Gap–age bison kill site, discussed in chapter 6, produced a large collection of Bison antiquus skeletal material and one skull in particular survived better than any of the others while in their post-mortem contexts (Figure 13.3, top). To pass the time while impatiently awaiting the copyedited material for this book, I retrieved this item from storage and removed its plaster and burlap cast along with the matrix adhering to the bone surfaces. One result (Figure 13.3, bottom) is an outstanding and rarely encountered view of the ventral side of a mature male Bison antiquus skull. Minor blemishes include small amounts of deterioration and deformation of the horn cores and breakage on the right zygomatic condyle. The latter probably resulted from hammerstone blows to facilitate the removal of the mandibles in order to gain access to the tongue. To me, this unusual specimen is a true icon of the Paleoindian bison hunters who occupied the Northern Plains of North America for several thousand years.

Appendix: Milestones 1924 1927 1942 1943

Born November 11 in Worland, Wyoming Moved to my grandparents ranch home at Ten Sleep, Wyoming Graduated from high school in Ten Sleep, Wyoming Joined the U.S. Navy; served with the amphibious forces in the South ­Pacific theater in World War II; received honorable discharge in December 1945 1945 Celebrated twenty-first birthday in Tientsin, China 1946 Married Carolyn June Glanville in Ten Sleep, Wyoming 1947 Entered into a family ranch partnership and three years later formed a ranch corporation 1956 Adopted our daughter, Carol 1956 Joined the Society for American Archaeology 1958 Traveled to the Plains Anthropological Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska 1962 Departed the ranching business; enrolled at the University of Wyoming as a freshman at age 37 1964 Received B.S. degree from the University of Wyoming 1967 Received Ph.D. degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan 1967 Accepted position of assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming 1967 Accepted position of Wyoming state archaeologist 1971 Excavated the 10,000-year-old Casper Hell Gap bison kill site discovered by amateur archaeologists Roderick Laird and David Egolf 1972 Elected president of the Plains Anthropological Society 1973 Discovered the Colby Mammoth Kill site in northern Wyoming 1973, 1975, and 1976 Received a total of $142,000 from the National Science Foundation for investigation of sites in the Medicine Lodge Creek Archaeological Project 1975 Received Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Wyoming Archaeological Society 1975 Received Asa Hill Award for Outstanding Archaeological Research and Interpretation, presented by the Nebraska Historical Society, Lincoln. 1976 First trip out of North America since World War II: Peru, Columbia, and Bolivia

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Published first edition of Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains (Academic Press) 1979 Received Smithsonian Institution Regents Fellowship Award to analyze and publish the results of investigations of the Agate Basin Paleoindian Site Project carried out at the Smithsonian during 1980 1980 With Bruce Bradley, published book on the Hanson Folsom site (University of New Mexico Press) 1981 Elected president of the Society for American Archaeology; served two years (1981–1983) as president-elect and two years (1983–1985) as president 1982 With Dennis Stanford, edited and published The Agate Basin Site: A Record of the Paleoindian Occupation of the Northwestern High Plains (Academic Press) 1982 Traveled to the XI International Union for Quaternary Research Congress at the University of Moscow, USSR 1983 Awarded $25,000 from the National Science Foundation to study communal mountain sheep procurement in the central Rocky Mountains 1984 Awarded $55,000 from the National Science Foundation for investigation of the Bugas-Holding site in the Sunlight Basin, northwest Wyoming 1984–1985 Experimented with replicas of Clovis weaponry on African elephants during culling operations in Zimbabwe 1985 Received the University of Wyoming George Duke Humphrey Distinguished Faculty Award 1986 Met with Lewis Binford, Tim White, and Donald Johanson at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania 1987 With Lawrence Todd, published The Colby Mammoth Site: Taphonomy and Archaeology of a Clovis Kill in Northern Wyoming (University of New Mexico Press); with Lawrence Todd, edited and published The Horner Site: The Type Site of the Cody Cultural Complex (Academic Press) 1988 Completed negotiations to purchase the Hell Gap site locality from the Frederick family, Guernsey, Wyoming, and transfer ownership to the Wyoming Archaeological Foundation, the research branch of the Wyoming Archaeological Society 1988 Awarded $71,000 from the National Science Foundation for investigation of the Mill Iron site in Carter County, Montana 1989 With Olga Soffer, conducted first Soviet American Archaeological Research Exchange; toured Upper Paleolithic archaeological sites in Russia with several Russian archaeologists and one British and nine American archaeologists 1991 Published second edition of Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains (Academic Press)

Milestones 273 1991

With Mary Lou Larson and Eric Ingbar, awarded $139,000 from the National Science Foundation for a study of high-altitude cultural adaptations at the Lookingbill site in the southern Absaroka Mountains, northwest Wyoming 1991 Traveled to the XIII International Union for Quaternary Research Congress in Beijing, China, and toured the Choukoutien site of “Peking Man” 1992 Traveled to and visited Paleoindian sites in Argentina 1993 Invited, along with Phil Shelley and C. Vance Haynes, to visit the Mesa Paleoindian site north of the Brooks Range in Alaska; in addition, went to a nearby Arctic Small-Tool Tradition site and a prehistoric caribou-­ procurement complex with drive lines reminiscent of a bison drive 1994 With Mary Lou Larson, awarded $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for analysis and publication of the Hell Gap site materials excavated by Harvard University in southeast Wyoming from 1962 to 1966 1994 Awarded $20,000 from the National Geographic Society and an additional $20,000 matching funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities for analysis and publication of the Hell Gap site materials 1995 Received Distinguished Service Award from the Plains Anthropological Society 1996 Retired from teaching and shifted to professor emeritus 1996 and 1998  Traveled to South Africa, toured the sites of Makapansgat, Sterk­fontein, Kromdaai, and Swartkrans and other sites; given a tour of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria by the director, Dr. Francis Thackery 1997 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1997 Received Paleoindian Archaeologist of the Century Award at the “Clovis and Beyond” Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico 2004 Published Survival by Hunting: Prehistoric Human Predators and Their Prey (University of California Press) 2005 Received Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Archaeology 2007 With Danny N. Walker, published first volume of the final report on the Medicine Lodge Creek site 2009 With Mary Lou Larson and Marcel Kornfeld, helped edit and publish the first volume on the analysis of the Hell Gap site (University of Utah Press) 2010 Received American Quaternary Association Distinguished Career Award 2010 Received University of Wyoming Medallion Service Award 2010 With Marcel Kornfeld and Mary Lou Larson, published third edition of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies (Left Coast Press)

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appendix Traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, for the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology to attend a symposium organized by Marcel Kornfeld and Bruce Huckell for me and C. Vance Haynes Presented a paper on the Powars II Paleoindian Red Ocher Quarry in southeast Wyoming at the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico

References Cited

Agenbroad, Larry D. 1978 The Hudson-Meng Site: An Alberta Bison Kill in the Nebraska High Plains. University Press of America, Washington, D.C. Agogino, George A., and W. D. Frankforter 1960 The Brewster Site: An Agate Basin–Folsom Multiple Component Site in Eastern Wyoming. Masterkey 34:102–107. Albanese, John P. 1971 Geology of the Ruby Site Area, Wyoming, 48CA302. American Antiquity 36(1):91–95. 1987 Geologic Investigations. In The Horner Site: The Type Site of the Cody Cul­ tural Complex, edited by G. C. Frison and L. C. Todd, pp. 279–326. Academic Press, Orlando. Anderson, Elaine 1968 Fauna of the Little Boxelder Cave, Converse County, Wyoming: The Carnivora. University of Colorado Studies, Series in Earth Sciences 6:1–59. Boulder. Bell, Robert 1960 Evidence of a Fluted Point Tradition in Ecuador. American Antiquity 26(1):102–106. Bentzen, Raymond C. 1962 The Powers-Yonkee Bison Trap. Plains Anthropologist 7(18):113–118. Binford, Lewis R. 1981 Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. Academic Press, New York. Bird, Junius 1946 Archaeology of Patagonia. In Handbook of South American ­Indians, ­edited by Julian Steward, Vol. 1:17–24. Smithsonian Institution, Wash­ ington, D.C. Bliss, Wesley L. 1950 Birdshead Cave, a Stratified Site in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming. American Antiquity 15(3):187–196. Bonnichsen, Robson, and Marcella H. Sorg (editors) 1989 Bone Modification. Peopling of the Americas Publications, Center for the Study of the First Americans, University of Maine, Orono. 275

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Wedel, Waldo R., Wilfred M. Husted, and John Moss 1968 Mummy Cave: Prehistoric Record from the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. Science 160:184–186. Wettlaufer, Boyd 1955 The Long Creek Site. Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources, Anthropological Series No. 2. Regina. Wheat, Joe Ben 1972 The Olsen-Chubbuck Site: A Paleo-Indian Bison Kill. Memoir No. 26. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 1979 The Jurgens Site. Plains Anthropologist Memoir, 15. Lincoln, NE. Wheeler, Richard 1996 Archaeological Investigations in Three Reservoir Areas in South Dakota and Wyoming, Vol. II. J&L Reprint Company, Lincoln, NE. White, Ted E. 1953a Observations on the Butchering Techniques of Some Aboriginal Peoples, No. 2. American Antiquity 19(2):160–164. 1953b A Method of Calculating the Dietary Percentage of Various Food Animals Utilized by Aboriginal Groups. American Antiquity 18(4):396–398. Willey, Gordon R. 1966 An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 1. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Wilson, E. N., and H. F. Driggs 1919 The White Indian Boy: The Story of Uncle Nick Among the Shoshones. World Book, Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. Wilson, Gilbert L. 1924 The Horse and the Dog in Hidatsa Culture. Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History 15, Pt. 2. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Wilson, Michael C. 1975 Holocene Fossil Bison from Wyoming and Adjacent Areas. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Wilson, Michael C., Kathie L. Road, and Kenneth J. Hardy (editors) 1981 Megaliths to Medicine Wheels: Boulder Structures in Archaeology. Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Chacmool Conference. Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, Alberta. Wimer, Alan E. 2001 Folsom Sites in Southwestern Wyoming. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie.



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Index Abramova, Zoia Aleksandra, 192–93 Abrams, David, 187 Adams, Richard E. W., 208 Adovasio, James, 169–70, 192 Agate Basin (AB) site, 71, 98–103, 181, 216, 247; Folsom evidence at, 125–28; projectile points, 100, 126–27 Agogino, George, 98, 220 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 94 Albanese, John, 87–88, 104, 111, 131–32; travels with author, 185, 187 Allen, James, 40–42 Allen Press, 208–9 Altimira, Spain, 188 Altithermal Climatic Episode, 158 American Anthropological Association. See under Society for American Archaeology American Antiquity, 209 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 56 American cheetah (Miracinonyx ­trumani), 143 American lion (Felis atrox), 143 American Paleoarctic Tradition, 216 American Quaternary Association (AMQUA), 211, 212–13 Amvrosievka bison kill site, 193–94 Anderson, Roy, 134 anthropology, changing perceptions of, 259 Anzick Clovis Cache, 136, 137, 138, 140 archaeology: and culture history v.

culture process crisis, 59–60; foundation for future, 262–63; historic site, 72–​74; last frontier of, 259; as a weak science, 66–67. See also under Frison, George C.; Wyoming, state Arctic Paleoindian sites, 215–17 arrowheads. See projectile points Arroyo Seco site, Argentina, 206 art, depiction of prehistoric events, 108–9, 134 artifact collectors, relationship with archaeologists, 4, 46 Athabascan pottery, 91 atlatls, 196–98, 120, 173, 176 Aubrey site, 135 Avonlea site, 173–76; projectile points, 175 Bad Pass Trail, 240 Baird, Donald, 110 Bass, William, 98, 102 Beehive Butte site, 173–75, 181; fire pit at, 173–75 bentonite, 229 Betty Greene site, 225 Bies, Mike, 229 biface reduction flakes, 126, 136–41 Big Goose Creek Bison Jump, 63, 238 Bighorn Basin, 128–29 Bighorn Medicine Wheel, 68, 235 Bighorn Mountains, 240, 266 Binford, Lewis, 59, 192, 194, 201–3, 226 Birdshead Cave, 164 bison, 21–23; behavior patterns, 61–62; 293

294

Index

Bison antiquus, 97–99, 106, 114, 128–​29, 143, 212, 269–70; Bison bison, 77–​81; Bison occidentalis, 97–98, 120, 121; bone beds, 102, 107, 111, 112, 117, 186; jumps, 62–63, 77, 79–83, 89, 122; kill sites, 39, 50, 74, 142; overkill theory, 97; Paleoindian procurement strategies, 77–81, 102, 106. See also under Frison, George C.; individual site names Black’s Fork Culture, 68 Blackwater Creek Fire, 25 Boarding School Bison Drive, 74, 89 Bogotá, Colombia, 184–85 Bomber Mountain, 39 bone beds. See under bison; individual site names bone modification, 226–28 bone tools, 226–28, 140 Bordes, François, 124 Bostrom, Peter, 115, 137 bow, 95–96; author use of, 15–16; ­Eskimo, 254; manufacture of, 15, 254–​55; mountain sheep horn, 252–55 Bowles, Kay, 164, 171 Boxelder Creek site, 247, 249 Bozovich, Joe, 90 Bradley, Bruce, 192, 196; and stone flaking, 111, 124, 126, 137–39 Brew, Joseph ( Jo), 220 Brewster site (later part of Agate Basin site), 102, 125, 128 Brockman, C. Thomas, 82 Brooks Range, Alaska, 215–17 Brown, Barnum, 19, 123, 125 Bryansk Nightingales, 193 Bryson, Reid, 213 buffalo. See bison Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 209–12

Bunnell, Orval, 150 Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 115, 143; lack of Plains archaeology knowledge, 69–70 burial sites, 231; artifact collecting at, 9, 13–15, 24 Bush, Maurice, 248 Bush Shelter, 145 Busskohl, Arthur, 79–80 cairn lines, 239–42 camels (Camelops hesternus), 141–42, 143 Canby, Thomas, 134 canids, 247–49; skulls, 247, 249 Carnegie Institution, 19 Carter Cave, 181 Carter/Kerr-McGee Bison Kill and Camp site, 107–8, 142, 181 Carter/Kerr-McGee mining, 98 Cartwright, Elizabeth, 155 Casper Hell Gap Bison Kill site, 103–7, 141–42, 181, 226, 269–70 Cassidy, Butch, 240–41 cattle: Angus, 44–45; Hereford, 44–45 Centennial (Michener), 2–3 Cerro El Sombrero, 205–6 Cerro La China, 205–6 Champe, John, 207 Chase, James ( Jim), 117–19 Cheek, Anetta, 208 chert, 196, 215, 243 chronology, cultural, of Northwestern Plains and central Rocky Mountains, 179–82 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 25 Clark, Gerald ( Jerry), 70, 115 Clovis: age, 123, 134, 233; blade cores, 233; caches, 135–38, experimental point, 196–98; lithic technology,



Index 295

136–37, 138–41; projectile points, 130–31, 136, 139, 194–95, 200. See also individual cache names Coal Draw site, 53–55, 228–31; burial site, 231; Dinwoody-style petroglyphs, 54, 228–29; pecked figures at, 54, 55; ritual activity, 229–31; stone tubes, 55, 229–31 Cody Cultural Complex; 107–13, 247; bison bone bed at, 107 Coetzee, Clem, 195 Coffin, Claude C., 49 Coffin, Roy C., 49–50 Colby, Donald, 129–31 Colby Mammoth Kill site, 3, 128–35, 181, 259; bone piles, 132–33; as coldweather meat cache, 133–34 Cole, Farney, 34–36 Cole, Robert, 15–16 Coleman, Roy, 75–76, 165 collared lemming, 145 Conner, Melissa, 218 Conner, Stuart, 70, 209 Cook, Harold, 113 coyotes. See under sheepherding Crabtree, Don, 124 Crabtree Award, 209 cribbed-log living structures, 248–52 Crook County, Wyoming, Clovis Cache, 137–38 Crow Indians: author memories of, 16; bison sites, 63; as calf ropers, 16–17; ceramics, 63–64 Cunnington, William, 263 Custer Battlefield, 30–31 Daniel, Glyn, 263 darts, 87, 104, 172, 196–97 Davis, Leslie, 192, 245 Dead Elephant Project, 219–20

Dead Indian Creek site, 172–73, 181; pithouses, 172–73 deer, procurement, 172–73 Dietz site, 135 Dincause, Dena, 192 dinosaur bones, 124; excavation of, 19, 40 Dinwoody. See under petroglyphs dire wolf (Canis dirus), 143 dogs. See canids Draper, Nancy, 212 Draper Museum of Natural History, 211, 212 drought of early 1930s, 11 Duguid, James, 220 Dutton, Merle, 110–11 Early Middle Period, Paleoindian, 146–60 Early Plains Archaic Period, Paleo­ indian, 146–60 Earthwatch, 143 Eastern Wyoming College, 223 Eden, 51, 108, 113 Eden-Farson Pronghorn site, 161–62, 181, 245 Edgar, Robert, 169, 210 Egolf, David, 103 1892 range war, 94 El Bosque site, Nicaragua, 214–15 elephants: airplane transport of, 201; culling, 194–201; experiments in spearing/butchering to mimic prehistoric mammoth procurement, 194–98, 219–20; Margie and the Dead-Elephant Project, 219–20 elk (Cervus elaphus): antler piles, 8, 176; antler use, 177, 243–44; petroglyph of, 177; Paleoindian procurement, 176–77 Erickson, Harold, 137–38 Espinosa, Jorge, 214–15

296

Index

fauna: assemblage collection of, 75–82; Pleistocene, 123–45 Fells Cave, Argentina, 205 Fenn, Forrest, 136–39, 224 Finley, Fred, 115 Finley, Judson, 155 Finley, O. W., 113 Finley Site, 113–15, 181; sand dune trap, 115 fire pits, 24, 173–75 flaking, stone, 117, 124, 137, 147, 177, 215. See also under Bradley, Bruce Flannery, Kent, 59 Flegenheimer, Nora, 205–6 FMP. See Foothill–Mountain Paleo­indian Folsom: age, 102, 227; components, 19, 125–29; evolving from Goshen, 117; projectile points, 50, 118. See also individual site names Folsom site, 257 Foothill–Mountain Paleoindian (FMP), 146–60 Fort Bonneville, 73 Fort Bridger Pronghorn Trap, 162–63 Fort Phil Kearny, 72–73 Fort Union Formation, 116 Fowler, Don, 208–9 Francis, Julie E., 155 Frederick family, 222–23 Freeman, Les, 188 Friedman, Irving, 137, 189, 190 Frison, Carol (daughter), 17, 258, 261, 266–67 Frison, George C. —early life, 1–32; artifact collecting, 6–7, 13–15, 23–24, 40, 42, 47–49; contact with bison, 23; bow and arrow use, 15–16; chores, 12–13; cow dog Rex, 7, 10; cowboy image, 7–8;

use of guns, 11–12; horse Buck, 6, 10; ranching memories, 1–2, 6–25; school memories, 2–4, 12; use/care of tools, 24–25, 196 —U.S. Navy service, 33–37; entry into Ancient Order of the Deep, 35; entry into the Domain of the Golden Dragon, 34–35; discharge, 37 —post-WWII ranching 38–59; back injury, 45; cattle operation, 44; contention with others over archaeological interests, 46, 49; crop-­ destroying insects and DDT, 38–39; discovery of B-24 bomber plane, 39; hunting guiding business, 40, 45, 74, 268, 270; sheep operation, 27–33; dissolution of ranching operation, 46, 49; transition from ranching to archaeology, 51, 57 —graduate school at University of Michigan, 58–65; Ph.D. in anthropology, 65; knowledge of animals/ hunting techniques provides archaeological niche, 61, 74, 259 —academic career, 66–258; acquisition of bison skeletal materials, 79–80; University of Wyoming department chair, 66; teaching, 67, 260; as state archaeologist, 68, 69; stumbling on Paleoindian bison kill, 111; performing experiments on bison and elephants to analyze prehistoric procurement/butchering techniques, 77, 79, 93–97, 195–200 —foreign travels, 183–206; Africa, 194–205; Argentina, 205–6; Chile, 189–90; China, 190–91; Easter Island, 189–90; Egypt, 185; France, 187–88; Honors Flight to WWII Memorial, 267–68; Mexico, 67,



Index 297

263; South America, 183–85; Soviet Union, 185–87; 191–94; Spain, 188; Zimbabwe, 195–201 —musings: as a rancher and archaeologist, 263–68; on language fluency, 263–64; on technology, 261 —service and retirement, 208–70; AMQUA: advisory board, 211–13; Distinguished Career Award, 213; Plains Anthropologist board member and Distinguished Service Award, 208; election to NAS, 260–61; SAA president, 209–10; SAA Lifetime Achievement Award, 209; SAA honorary symposium, 268; retirement, 258–70 Frison, George S. (father), 6, 21 Frison, Gerald (cousin) and Geri, 141 Frison, Jacob (grandfather): cattle operation, 26–27; conservationist, 20; death of, 20; early life, 24; injury, 19–20, 25; ranching operation, 6–25; settlement, 5–6; skill with axes, 24; dislike of wolves, 20 Frison, Margaret (grandmother), 24; death of, 42; ranching operation, 6–25; settlement, 5–6 Frison, Paul (uncle), 20, 27, 168–69, 210 Frison, Robert (uncle), 49, 71, 100 Frison, Theodore (Ted, uncle), 27, 74 Frost, Ned, 165–66 Fry, Gary, 148 Galloway, Gene, 128, 131 Galvan, Maribeth, 155 Gamble, Clive, 192 Gardner, Pete (Bison Pete), 75, 80 Gault site, 135 geomorphology, 125

Ghost Cave, 146 Gill, George, 82 Glanville, (Carolyn) June, 38, 264–66; Alzheimer’s disease, 265–66; death of, 266; early life, 264; Hole in the Wall Trail, 241–42; marriage, 38; ranch life, 47, 264, 268; snowbird lifestyle, 265; support of author, 258, 261, 264, 265; foreign travels, 183–87, 202–3; 205–6; WWII Pentagon secretary, 264 Glanville, Earl (Blue), 264 Glanville, William, 264 Glenrock Buffalo Jump, 77–79, 181, 226, 238 golden eagles, 8–9 Gordon, William, 27 Gorman family, 223 Goshen: age, 115, 117, 119, 221; projectile points, 117, 221–24, 257 Goshen Cultural Complex, 115–17, 257 Gossett, Gail, 203 Gossett, Raymond, 203 gray literature, 263 Great Divide Basin Project, The, 255–57 Great Zimbabwe site, 204 Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), 211–12 Greene, Betty, 224–25 Greene, Harris, 224–25 Grey, Donald, 67–68 Griffin, James B., 58–59, 60 grizzly kill site, 75–76 Gros Ventre Mountains, 249, 252–53 Guthrie, Dale, 213 Handbook of North American Indians, 3 Hannus, Adrien, 95 Hanson, Imogene, 123–24

298

Index

Hanson, Milford, 123–24 Hanson Folsom site, 3, 19, 123–25, 181, 259; house floors, 124–25 Harvard University Hell Gap Expedition, 221 Hawken Bison Trap site, 119–22, 181, 226, 247; projectile points, 120; site I and II, 120, 122 Haynes, C. Vance, 135, 138, 192, 209, 216; and Hell Gap site, 221, 224; SAA honorary symposium, 268 Haynes, Gary, 195 Helen Lookingbill site. See Lookingbill site Hell Gap site, 59, 72, 103–7, 142, 181, 220–25; artifacts, 257; projectile points, 105; witness profile, 222 Heuermann, Ken, 147–49 high-altitude research, 262 Hilman, Ross, 131 historic sites archaeology. See under archaeology Hoffman, Frank, 30–31 Holder, Joyce, 54 Holder, Preston, 54, 56 Hole in the Wall Gang, 242 Hole in the Wall Trail, 240–43 Holm, Bill, 254 Hood, William (Bill), 29 Horner, Pearl, 41, 110 Horner Bison Kill site, 3, 41–43, 108–13, 181, 247; bone bed, 111, 112 house floors, 124–25 Huckell, Bruce, 268 Hudson-Meng site, 122 Hunters, The (Marshall), 61 hunting: author’s excursions, 11–12, 39–40; and controlled burns, 62; trophy v. meat, 74, 270 Husted, Wilfred, 147

Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, 195–98 Ingbar, Eric, 159 Intermountain Tradition fired pottery, 245 International Union for Quaternary Research Congress (XI meeting), 185–86 Irwin, Ann Monseth (Greene), 224–25 Irwin, Eleanor (Kay), 223–24 Irwin, Henry, 59, 98, 220–21, 223 Irwin-Williams, Cynthia, 59, 98, 208, 220–22 Jackson Hole Museum, 217 Jackson Lake Archaeological Project, 215–19 Jackson Lake dam, 217–18 James Allen site, 41 Jelinek, Arthur (Art), 60, 124, 136, 188 Jennings, Jesse, 56–57 Jepsen, Glen, 41–42, 108, 110 Joe (sheepherder), 29–30 Joe Medicine Crow, 13 Johanson, Donald, 201–2 Johnson County, Wyoming, invasion of, 94 Jones-Miller Hell Gap site, 122 juniper, 15, 90, 170, 252–53 Kay, Marvin, 200 Keyhole Reservoir Project, 234 Kobold, Elmer, 83 Kobold, George, 83 Kobold Buffalo Jump, 83–85, 181 Kornfeld, Marcel, 159, 233, 234, 268 Knudson, Ruthann, 208, 224 Krmpotich, Jack, 128, 161 Krmpotich Folsom site, 128



Index 299

Krotova, Sasha, 192 Kunz, Michael, 216 La Brea Tar Pits, 145 Laddie Creek site, 156–58, 181 Lahren, Larry, 136 Laird, Rodney, 103, 141 Lake Titicaca, Peru, 184 Lamb site, 135 Lange-Ferguson site, 135 La Quina site, France, 188 La Raurey, Domingo, 31–32 La Raurey, Maria, 31 Larson, Mary Lou, 155, 158, 159 Lascaux, France, cave paintings, 187–88 Late Paleoindian Age, 147–60, 257 Late Prehistoric Age, 154–59 Laugerie Haute, France, 188 Lawrence, Verba, 217 Lawrence, William C. (Slim), 217–18 Leakey, Mary, 201–3 Lehmer, Donald, 56 Lehner, Ed, 135 Lehner Mammoth Kill site, 135 Leigh, Lord Gilbert, 53 Leigh Cave, 52–53, 181 Leningrad. See Saint Petersburg Leopold, Luna, 125 Les Eyzies conference, 124 Lewis, Arthur, 146 Lewis, H. P., 62–63 Lincoln, Nebraska, 207–8 Lindenmeier Folsom site, 49, 50, 71, 176 lithic technology, 124, 243–45; usewear analysis, 95, 199. See also under Clovis Little Boxelder Cave, 143–44 Logan site, 256 log cabins, craft of, 18

Lookingbill, Art, 158 Lookingbill, Helen, 158 Lookingbill site, 158–60, 181, 262 Love, Charles, 151 Love, David, 151, 212, 217–18 Loveland, Colorado, 49–52 Loveland Stone Age Fair (LSAF), 49–52 Lucas, Tom, 254 Ludinovo mammoth site, 192–94 Lusk Cultural Complex, 225 Machu Picchu, Peru, 184 Madison Formation, 143 mammoth: Paleoindian hunting and procurement, 200; kill sites, 131–35; remains, 186; Soviet Union sites, 191–94 manos, 23 Marshall, John, 61 Martin, Paul, 97 MAS. See Montana Archaeological Society McCracken, Harold, 210, 211 McGrew, Paul, 79 McDonald, “Happy,” 31 McGimsey, Charles R., 70 McKean site, 181, 234; projectile points, 234 Medicine Lodge Creek (MLC) site, 70, 149–56, 175–78, 181, 259; rock art, 155 Meltzer, David, 192 Mesa Complex, 215–17 metates, 23 Michener, James, 2–3 Middle Woodland Hopewell archaeological sites, 64–65 Midland site, 257 Midwest NPS Center, 218

300

Index

Mill Iron Bison Kill site, 115–17, 181; bone bed, 117; projectile points, 116 Miller, James, 160 Miller, Jerome ( Jerry), 208 Miller, Mark, 69, 155 Montana Archaeological Society (MAS), 62, 146; 1961 “Symposium on Buffalo Jumps,” 62 Moore, Sarah, 137 Morris, Earl, 47 Morris, Esther, 73–74 Moss Agate arroyo, 102–3 Moss Agate Creek, 102 mountain sheep. See sheep, mountain Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic sites, 187–88 Muddy Creek Bison Kill Complex, 89–91, 181, 235; projectile points, 90–91 mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), 159 Mullins, Mark, 153, 155, 224 Mulloy, William (Bill), 58, 59, 68; and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 56, 57; death of, 82; and James Allen site, 41; MAS project director, 146; McKean point types, 234; mountain sheep bows, 254; and Spring Creek Cave, 47–49; stone circle studies, 235; foreign travels of, 183; and the WAS, 46–47 Mummy Cave, 158, 211 Murray Springs, 135 Museum of Cairo, 185 National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 260–61 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), 224 National Geographic, 136

National Geographic Society (NGS), 116–17; grants, 143, 221, 224 National Science Foundation (NSF), grants, 59, 67, 90, 92, 101, 117, 123, 132, 143, 159 Natural Trap Cave, 143–45 Nenana Complex, 216 nets. See under sheep, mountain New Mexico Folsom site, 19 Nile River, Egypt, 185 Northern Arapahoe, 17 North Platte River, 103, 143, 145 NSF. See National Science Foundation obsidian, 137, 189, 190; in Middle Woodland Hopewell sites, 64–65 Obsidian Cliff, 64 ochre, red, 232–34 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, 201–2 Old Women’s Buffalo Jump, 74 Olorgesailie, Paleolithic hand ax site, 203 Olsen-Chubbuck site, 74 Olson, Linda, 55 Outlaw Cave, 241 PAC. See Plains Anthropological Conference pack rat (Neotoma cineria), 169, 177–78 Page/Ladson site, 135 Paint Rock V Rockshelter, 157–58, 181 Paleoindian, as area of study, 71 Parks, Emerson, 46 Patagonia rangeland grasses, 205 Peabody Museum, 223 Pelican Lake projectile points, 84, 85 Perony, M., 188 petroglyphs, 68, 70; Dinwoody-style, 54, 228–29 Pictograph Cave, 146–47, 155–56



Index 301

Pierce, Kenneth, 219 Piney Creek bison kill site, 59, 61, 181; stone circles, 237–38 pithouses, 172–73 Plains Anthropological Conference (PAC), 4, 49, 207–8 Plains Anthropological Society, 207–8 Plains Anthropologist, 207–8 Plains-central Rocky Mountain archaeology, 262 porcupines, 178 Powars, Wayne, 232–33 Powars II Red Ochre Quarry, 232–34 Powder River Basin, 107, 240 Powell, Wyoming Japanese relocation camp, 33 Powers-Yonkee site, 83–84 Princeton Alumni Weekly, 42, 43 projectile points: chipped-stone, 205, 218; fishtail, 205–6; manufacture of, 9–10. See also individual point names; see also under individual site names pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), 126, 161–64 Pryor Stemmed projectile points, 147–49, 150, 157–58 Pumpkin Buttes arrowhead mine, 85 Qin Shi Huang terra-cotta warriors site, 190–91 quarries, 243–47 quartzite, 243 rabbits, cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii), 11 Rapu, Sergio, 189 rattlesnakes, 7, 8 Raven, Peter H., 260–61 Rea, Barton (Bart), 110 Reanier, Richard, 216

red ochre, 232–34 Reher, Charles, 79, 92, 161, 167 Renaud, E. B., 68–69 Richey Clovis Cache, 135, 136 Rippeteau, Bruce, 219, 220 ritual activity, Paleoindian, 87, 167–68, 229–31 Robben Island, 204–5 Roberts, Frank H. H., 71, 98, 100, 102 Roby, Ben, 256 Roby site, 255–56 Ruby Bison Corral, 87–89 Ruby Site Bison-Procurement Complex, 85–89, 181; postholes, 85–87; ritual structure, 87 Rupp, Frank, 119 Russell, Osborne, 168 Russell, Virgil Y., 42, 51 SAA. See Society for American Archaeology sand dunes, 115; parabolic, 104 Sahlins, Marshall, 97 Saint Petersburg, Soviet Union, 192; Zoological Museum at, 186, 192 Schiffer, Tony, 147–48 Schiffer Cave, 147–49, 181 Schmitt Chert Mine, 245 Scoggin, William, 256 Scoggin Chain Lakes site, 255–56 Scottsbluff site, 257 Scotty (sheepherder), 31 Shakespeare, William, 17 Shalinsky, Audrey, 82 Sharrock, Floyd, 68 Sheaman, Robert, 138 Sheaman site, 138–41, 181; carved bone cylinders, 140 sheep, mountain (Ovis catclawensis; Ovis canadensis): use of clubs, 167;

302

Index

and nets/twisted cordage to trap, 169–70; modern trapping experiments, 170–71; Paleoindian procurement, 80–81, 125, 143, 159, 164–71; ritual activity of ram skulls in trees, 167–68; trapping complexes and catch pens, 165–69, 171 sheepherders: Basque, 31–32; cattlemen relations, 26–28, 44; Scottish, 27–33 sheepherding, 29–32; author’s registered livestock brand Y+, 33; use of cyanide guns, 32; lambing season, 28–29, 33; predators and coyote control, 32–33; shearing, 28 Sheep Mountain, 169 Shelley, Phil, 216 Shirley Basin, 98, 236 short-faced bear (Arctodus simus), 143 Shoshonean cultural groups, 161–64, 177, 245 Shoshone River, 111 Shoshoni National Forest, 25, 159 Silberling, Albert, 41 Simon, W. D., 137 Simon Clovis Cache, 137 Simpson, Tana, 172 site-formation process, 71 Slater, Ann, 82 Smithsonian Institution, 3, 98, 101–2 snares, 177–78 soapstone, 245 Society for American Archaeology (SAA), 208–9, 268; fiftieth anniversary, 209; separation from American Anthropological Association (AAA), 208–9 Society for California Archaeology, 187 Soffer, Olga, 191, 192, 194 Somoza, Anastasio, 215

Soroki reindeer kill, 193 South Pass City, Wyoming, 73 Southsider Cave, 156–58, 181 Sowers, Ted, 69 Spanish Diggings site, 243 Spanish Point site, 177, 243–45 Spencer, William, 71, 100 Spring Creek Canyon, 47 Spring Creek Cave site, 47–49, 146, 181 Spring Creek Raid, 26 Stanford, Dennis, 59, 98, 110, 223; and Agate Basin site, 101–2; and El Bosque site, 215; and Powars II site, 232 steatite, 245–47 Steward, Julian, 163 stone circles, 234–39 stone flaking. See flaking, stone stone tubes, 55, 229–31 storage facilities, at UW, 81–82 Strook, Thomas, 203 Sungir site, 194 Sunlight Basin, 172–73; log structure at, 76, 165 Sunrise Iron Ore Mine, 232–33 Tales of the South Pacific (Michener), 3 Tankersley, K., 138 taphonomy, 79 teeth: eruption schedules, 79, 80; for species identification, 94–95 Ten Sleep Creek site, 52–53, 63–64, 238 Ten Sleep Valley, 13–14, 264; historic trail, 13–14 Thackery, Francis, 204 Tiahuanaco, 184 tie hacks (Swedish timber workers), 18 Time (magazine), 41–42 tipis, 13, 235–236, 248–52; conical pole, 250; rings, 59, 90, 236, 238



Index 303

Tisdale, John A., 94 Todd, Lawrence, 134, 85–86 tool classification, 124 Transvaal Museum, 204 trapping. See individual site names; see also under sheep, mountain tree-ring dating, 167, 235 Tucson, Arizona, 265 Turk, Brooke, 239 Turk, Louise, 239 Two Medicine Bison Jump, 63 University of Nebraska, 207 University of Wyoming. See under Frison, George C. Upper Twin Mountain Bison Kill site, 117–19, 181 uranium mining, 40, 98 USS Arizona, 33 USS Navarro, 34–35 vandalism, site, 113–14, 119–20, 159–60, 239 Van Norman, Zola, 54, 228–29 Ventling site, 256 Von Daniken, Erich, 184 Voorhies, Michael, 79 Vore Site Bison Trap, 91–94, 181; buffalo jump, 226–27, 247; karst (sinkhole) at, 91–92 Wardell Buffalo Trap, 90–91, 181 war lodge, Early Historic Plains ­Indian, 210–11, 248–52 WAS. See Wyoming Archaeological Society Watson, Patty Jo, 209 Weathermon, Rick, 155 Webb, Clarence H., 209 Webb, S. David, 141

Wedding of the Waters Cave, 54 Wedel, Waldo, 108, 110, 113 Weintz, John, 22 Wheat, Joe Ben, 57, 226 Wheeler, Richard, 234 whistle-pigs (Marmota flaviventris), 178 White, Tim, 201–2 Wildesen, Leslie, 208 Wilkie, Phil, 163–64 Willey, Gordon, 59 Williams, Burton (Burt), 70, 115 Williams, Linda Ward, 234 Williams, Stephen, 223 Wilson, Gilbert, 178 Wilson, Michael, 107, 120 Wilson, Nick, 15 Wimer, Alan R., 255–56 Wind River Shoshoni Indians, 15, 17, 69; reservation, 17 winter of 1886–87, 22 winter of 1949–50, 43–44 Witter, Robert, 41, 110, 113 wolves, 20, 21. See also canids Woodard site, 91 Woodruff, John D., 168–69 wool, 28 Wormington, H. Marie, 47, 108, 124, 215; and Hell Gap site, 220–21; Paleoindian authority, 2–3; and AAAS, 56, 57 Wright, Gary, 218 WWII memorial sites, 33, 267–68 Wyoming Archaeological Foundation, 223 Wyoming Archaeological Society (WAS), 47, 70; Cody Chapter, 172; Sheridan Chapter, 67–68; Sweet­ water Chapter, 161 Wyoming Basin, 255–56

304

Index

Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGF), 75 Wyoming Recreation Commission (WRC), 68, 72 Wyoming, state: 1940 archaeological survey, 69; lack of archaeological resources, 68; cultural resources inventory, 69; establishment of state archaeologist, 68, 69; and evolution of Paleoindian site investigations, 113. See also archaeology

Yellowtail Dam, 147 Yonkee projectile points, 83–85 “Yuma,” changed to “Eden,” 108, 113 Zambezi River, 203 Zeimens, George, 95–96, 131–32, 148, 150, 222–23