Season of Bison Mortality at Three Plains Archaic Kill Sites in Wyoming

Abstract

Reanalysis of bison lower dentary assemblages from the Scoggin site (ca. 4540 BP), Cordero Mine site (ca. 3520 BP), and Rourke site (ca. 2500-1700 BP), offers new information concerning the seasonality of Plains Archaic bison utilization. Discrepancies in emption and wear of the Scoggin mandibular molars suggest at least two kill-butchery events: (1) summer-early fall (y+0.2-0.4 yrs); and (2) late fall-early winter (y+0.6-0. 7 yrs). The Rourke kill occurred in the late spring-early summer (y+O.J- 0.2 yrs), and bison at Cordero Mine were procured during the fall-early winter (y+0.5-0. 7 yrs). These data provide several lines of information on seasonal variability and long-term changes in human socioeconomic behavior during the Archaic on the Northwestern Plains. Procurement tactics at Scoggin and Rourke, especially the repeated use oft he jump-corral at Scoggin, suggest long-term investment at a fixed location on the landscape, which may indicate unpredictable bison populations, social restrictions, lack of topographic features to facilitate mass hunting, or a combination of these factors. Early evidence ofintensive carcass processing at Cordero Mine, and possibly at Scoggin, may have been a consequence of these factors and/or a strategy designed to lessen the effects ofwinter-springfood shortages.