Landscape Engineering and Organizational Complexity among Late Prehistoric Bison Hunters of the Northwestern Plains

Zedeño, María Nieves; Ballenger, Jesse; Murray, John R.

doi:10.1086/674535

Cited by 63 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…TEK is knowledge and practices passed orally across generations informed by cultural memories, sensitivity to change, and reciprocity (Kimmerer, 2000). TEK land-care processes include modifying vegetation with fire to improve ecosystem productivity and manipulate large-herbivore herds (Zedeño et al, 2014;Roos et al, 2018). TEK practices increase biodiversity and ecological resiliency by creating patchy landscape mosaics (Turner et al, 2000) and offer a web of knowledge that includes values that can help restore ecosystems (Lightfoot et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of the Ashes: Ecological Resilience to Extreme Wildfire, Prescribed Burns, and Indigenous Burning in Ecosystems

et al. 2019

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Until Euro-American colonization, Indigenous people used fire to modify eco-cultural systems, developing robust Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Since 1980, wildfire activity has increased due to fire suppression and climate change. In 2017, in Waterton Lakes National Park, AB, the Kenow wildfire burned 19,303 ha, exhibiting extreme fire behavior. It affected forests and the Eskerine Complex, a native-grass prairie treated with prescribed burns since 2006 to reduce aspen (Populus tremuloides) encroachment linked to fire suppression and bison (Bison bison bison) extirpation. One year post-fire, the Kenow wildfire caused vigorous aspen sprouting, altered stand structure to an early-seral state and changed dominant land cover from grass to mineral soil. It did not change aspen-cover extent or cause non-native grass eruption, but it reduced native-grass diversity and produced more pronounced shifts in ecosystem structure and biodiversity than the prescribed burn. The 2017 Kenow wildfire and prescribed burns differed in phenological timing, scale, and severity. Prescribed burns occurred in late spring, with little fuel available, while the Kenow wildfire occurred in late summer, with abundant fuel-amplifying the difference in severity. As in other climate-limited fire regimes, prescribed burns treatments did not mitigate the severity of the Kenow wildfire. To more effectively reduce the extent of aspen cover, future prescribed burns in this system could be applied in the late season. Incorporating TEK in adaptive comanagement can help create ecosystems more resilient to fire and pervasive stressors such as invasive plants, provided one contextualizes current conditions and how they differ from historical conditions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of the Ashes: Ecological Resilience to Extreme Wildfire, Prescribed Burns, and Indigenous Burning in Ecosystems

et al. 2019

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“…The tipi rings cover the same age range. All these ages fall within the defined temporal range of the Old Woman's Phase, a period of intensified bison hunting (Peck 2011;Zedeño et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussion Of Ages Kutoyismentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The locality straddles the Two Medicine River and contains 3,600 well-preserved rock features and bone scatters. The stone architecture on the reservation is being analyzed by the Kutoyis Archaeological Project (KAP) (Zedeño et al 2014) to study landscape engineering and its impact on the harvest of bisons well as the temporal relationship of domestic and non-domestic sites to hunting facilities (Ballenger et al 2008;Jones et al 2010;Zedeño et al 2010;Zedeño et al 2008).…”

Section: Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eighteen calibrated radiocarbon dates from stratified contexts range between ca. A.D. 1210 and A.D. 1886, 10 of them clustering in the mid-A.D. 1500s (Zedeño et al 2014: Table 1). The network of rock alignments at Kutoyis ( Figure 3) includes two major drive lines, each 4.5 and 2.5 km long, called the north and south drive lines respectively, forming a funnel and leading to the cliff (Zedeño et al 2014).…”

Section: Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dating Stone Alignments by Luminescence

Zedeño¹,

Todd²,

Aaberg³

2015

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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Stone alignments, including tipi rings and drive lines, are abundant on the northern Plains and adjacent Rocky Mountains, but they have been notoriously difficult to date. This paper applies luminescence dating to sediments directly underneath the rocks to estimate the age of placement of the rock. This is based on the assumption that before the rock was emplaced, turbation processes brought sufficient grains to the surface, where sunlight reset the signal. Single-grain dating of potassium feldspars allowed isolation of these original well-bleached grains, which by now have built up a signal because the rock prevents transfer to the surface. Plotting the number of original well-bleached grains with depth showed that these grains were concentrated just under the rock and decreased with depth. This is what would be predicted if the assumption is true. Dates were derived from several samples from Kutoyis in north central Montana, from Whitewater in eastern Montana, and from several sites in northwestern Wyoming. Many samples from Kutoyis and Wyoming dated to the last 600 years, but some samples from both places were more than 2,000 years old. The Whitewater features also dated to around 2,000 years ago. The ages are consistent with the cultural history of the areas.

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“…According to Crow oral traditions, successful jumps required that cliff exposures remain hidden from the bison herd by using natural landscape features or abrupt driveline turns to trick the herd over a precipice (Medicine Crow 1962, 1978). This required tribal leaders to carefully orchestrate the placement of drivelines, habitation sites, and people in order to have the location of the coup de grace remain hidden from the herd (Carlson and Bement 2013; Frison 1978; Zedeño et al 2014). Like at the GVC, prearranged cairn or brush lines, fences, or walls took advantage of the natural topography to direct bison herds to a targeted location where people could trap the animals or drive them over a steep drop.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacheeishdíio (Place Where Men Pack Meat)

et al. 2017

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Bacheeishdíio (“Place Where Men Pack Meat”), now called Grapevine Creek in English, is the subject of Crow oral traditions that document the cultural significance of the landscape and celebrate centuries of bison hunting in the drainage. We report an ongoing, community-based project that integrates archaeological field training and research goals into a collaborative indigenous archaeology project supporting the expressed goal of the Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Office to prepare a district-level nomination for the Grapevine Creek drainage basin. This paper describes findings from field investigations that document buffalo jump locales, a previously unreported bison bonebed, and associated archaeological features in the drainage, grounding Crow oral traditions that document buffalo jumps and large-scale bison hunts firmly into the landscape. We take a holistic approach that incorporates multiple lines of evidence to assess the archaeological record associated with bison jumps and bison hunting on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. Results of this project include an enriched understanding of the Grapevine Creek archaeological record, greater awareness of buffalo hunting strategies on the northwest Plains, and, through field training, enhanced cultural resource management capabilities for the Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Office.

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Landscape Engineering and Organizational Complexity among Late Prehistoric Bison Hunters of the Northwestern Plains

Cited by 63 publications

References 65 publications

Out of the Ashes: Ecological Resilience to Extreme Wildfire, Prescribed Burns, and Indigenous Burning in Ecosystems

Out of the Ashes: Ecological Resilience to Extreme Wildfire, Prescribed Burns, and Indigenous Burning in Ecosystems

Dating Stone Alignments by Luminescence

Bacheeishdíio (Place Where Men Pack Meat)

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