Bison skull pile - photo

[Altair]

Bison skull pile, c. 1892.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...r_fullsize.jpg



Previously:

Tagging a bison - photo

[odd one]

That is just sad. No wonder they darn near went extinct. At least they are all in one place which indicates that they MAY have been processed and not just shot for sport. I've shot my fair amount of game, but this just seemed like another way (planned or not) to F over the Native Americans.

[nova_robotics]

A few years ago a buddy of mine broke into the catacombs under Paris and was sending me pictures. It was basically this, but with human skulls. The pictures she sent me do not look anything like the carefully curated pictures you see online where everything is neatly stacked. It was just a big pile of bones.

[Duke_of_URL]

Actually, Native Americans, before gaining access to repeating rifles, would drive entire herds of Bison over cliffs, killing massive quantities at one time, which was far more efficient for them than hunting with bow & arrow and knife.

[WmRMeyers]

That is just sad. No wonder they darn near went extinct. At least they are all in one place which indicates that they MAY have been processed and not just shot for sport. I've shot my fair amount of game, but this just seemed like another way (planned or not) to F over the Native Americans.

It was planned. The idea was to force them to live on the reservation land, and not move around following the buffalo herds. The mantra was "Kill the Indian and save the man." Once upon a time, I wanted to teach social studies, particularly history. And I took quite a bit more American History than the requirements for the degree in Social Studies, Secondary Education.

[WmRMeyers]

Actually, Native Americans, before gaining access to repeating rifles, would drive entire herds of Bison over cliffs, killing massive quantities at one time, which was far more efficient for them than hunting with bow & arrow and knife.

I don't know if those folks count as American Indians. Some of those mass buffalo kill sites have Clovis points embedded in some of the buffalo bones. Those are 10-13,000 years old. Paleo-Indians they were called, and I don't know that any of their descendants are still around. Never mind that. There's apparently a Clovis burial that does link them to modern American Indians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture It's been a little while since I last took a class or read a book on the subject.

[BuffaloJohn]

Actually, Native Americans, before gaining access to repeating rifles, would drive entire herds of Bison over cliffs, killing massive quantities at one time, which was far more efficient for them than hunting with bow & arrow and knife.

Until they had horses, they couldn't use arrows or spears effectively enough, and also it was quite dangerous once the herd got moving.

[BuffaloJohn]

I don't know if those folks count as American Indians.

Yes they did, well documented up to the time of horses, they could could best use buffalo jumps to kill the animals.

[BuffaloJohn]

There is this idylic view of the native americans, but they practiced slavery, warred with their neighbors, burned the prairies to drive animals and people away, and on and on...

My favorite story to tell is that some tribes believed that if they came across a herd, that they would have to kill all the animals so that a herd would return to the area the next year. Why kill them all? Because if they left survivors, those would tell the others not to come that way in the future, so all must die.

I raised bison for over 2 decades, did quite a bit of reading up on history, lore, stories, etc...

[BuffaloJohn]

That is just sad. No wonder they darn near went extinct. At least they are all in one place which indicates that they MAY have been processed and not just shot for sport. I've shot my fair amount of game, but this just seemed like another way (planned or not) to F over the Native Americans.

You have to realize that these skulls and bones were harvested to be processed into bonemeal, and that this was a place where they were to be loaded onto railcars for transport for grinding.