For millennia, Aboriginal hunters on the North American Plains used their knowledge of the land and of buffalo behaviour to drive their quarry over cliffs. Archaeologist Jack Brink has written a major study of the mass buffalo hunts and the culture they supported before and after European contact. By way of example, he draws on his 25 years excavating at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in southwestern Alberta, Canada a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Foreward by Eldon Yellowhorn
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. The Buffalo Jump
Communal Buffalo Hunting
Not Just Any Cliff
The Site
The Cliff
How Long Have Buffalo Jumped?
Blood on the Rocks: The Story of Head-Smashed-In
2. The Buffalo
Is it Bison or Buffalo?
In Numbers, Numberless
Tricks of the Trade
The Fats of Life
3. A Year in the Life
Calves
Mothers
Fathers
The Big Picture
Science and the Historic Record
The Seasonal Round
Summer
Fall and Winter
Spring
The Season of Buffalo Jumping
4. The Killing Fields
Finding Bison
Drive Lanes
Points in Time
Ancient Knowledge
Back to the Drive Lanes
Deadmen
In Small Things Forgotten
5. Rounding Up
The Spirit Sings
The Nose of the Buffalo
Fire this Time
Luring the Buffalo
Buffalo Runners
Lost Calves
Billys Stories
The End of the Drive
Of Illusions, Pickup Trucks, and Curves in the Road
6. The Great Kill
Leap of Faith
Overkill?
Drop of Death
Bones on Fire
Let the Butchering Begin
Bison Hide as Insulator
Back to the Assembly Line
7. Cooking up the Spoils
The Processing Site
Day Fades to Night
Dried Goods
Grease is the Word
High Plains Cooking
Hazel Gets Slimed
Buffalo Chips
![Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting On The Northern Plains [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/7/7/2/2_1333379.jpg "Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting On The Northern Plains [Paperback]")