Bonfire Shelter is an

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

site located in a southwest

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

rock shelter, near

Langtry, Texas Langtry is an unincorporated community in Val Verde County, Texas, United States. The community is notable as the place where Judge Roy Bean, the "Law West of the Pecos", had his saloon and practiced law. History Langtry was originally establi ...

, US. This archaeological site contains evidence of mass American buffalo hunts, a phenomenon that is usually associated with the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

hundreds of miles to the north. This site is the southernmost site that has been located in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

where mass bison hunts have taken place, and also the earliest known.Dibble,David S. and Dessamae Lorrain: 1968 Bonfire Shelter: A Stratified Bison Kill Site, Val Verde County, Texas. Miscellaneous Papers No.1. Texas Memorial Museum Publications, University of Texas, Austin.

History

Bison hunting Bison hunting (hunting of the American bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo) was an lifeway, activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the Great bison belt, vast grasslands on the ...

was performed as " bison jumps" which involved stampeding a herd of bison over a cliff, and then butchering the dead animals. In the shelter, there are two distinct zones of bison bones. Each zone represents several bison jumps over relatively little time, perhaps no more than 50–100 years, but the two zones occurred nearly 7500 years apart. The earlier bones are dated to

Paleo-Indian Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

period hunts, while the later occurred in around 500 BC. The site was originally investigated by legendary Texas archaeologist David S. Dibble. Archaeologist Vaughn Bryant has investigated this strange lack of intermediate hunts. Using

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by most types of flowers of seed plants for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced Gametophyte#Heterospory, microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm ...

samples, he discovered that the area had seen good grass cover for grazing only twice since 10,000 BC, and that each time coincided with a deposit of bones. At other times, this area was too inhospitable to support large herds of grazing animals. Bonfire Shelter demonstrates the correlation between

climatic change ''Climatic Change'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Science+Business Media covering cross-disciplinary work on all aspects of climate change and variability. It was established in 1977 by Stephen H. Schneider, ...

s and the archaeological evidence we can find today. Mile Canyon, where Bonfire Shelter is located, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1970 AD. The historic district comprises a 1,500 acre (6 km²) area which is entirely on privately owned land.

References

Fagan, Brian. ''Ancient North America''. Thames & Hudson, London. 2005, p 125.

External links

* * * Buffalo jumps Rock shelters in the United States Landforms of Val Verde County, Texas {{hunting-stub