The Cooper Bison Kill Site is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

near Fort Supply in Harper County,

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, United States. Located along the Beaver River, it was explored in 1993 and 1994 and found to contain artifacts of the

Folsom tradition The Folsom tradition is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from to c. 10200 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Denver Museum of Nature and Scien ...

, dated at c.10800 BCE to c. 10,200 BCE in calibrated radiocarbon years. Findings include projectile points (for spears), the

bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elasticity (physics), elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the ...

not yet being in use at this date.Cooper Bison Kill Site (34HP45)
, Oklahoma Center for Geospatial Information. Accessed 2009-06-14. The projectile points are the results of hunters killing bison in an arroyo. Known artifacts at the site from this culture are believed to be the results of three different hunts.Bement, Leland C. "Cooper Site." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.
Accessed May 30, 2016. ''Archaeology in America'' described the Cooper Site as "...a gully feeding the

North Canadian River The North Canadian River is a river, long, in Oklahoma in the United States. It is a tributary of the Canadian River, draining an area of U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset/Watershed Boundary Dataset, area data covering Nor ...

," which contained evidence of three separate kills, with between twenty and thirty animals in each kill. All three kills occurred during late summer or early fall, and each kill contained the remains of cows, calves and young bulls. Tools found at the site consisted only of projectile points and large flake knives. In 2002, the site was listed on 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 ...

. A unique find at the site was that of a ''

Bison antiquus ''Bison antiquus'' is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Late Pleistocene from over 60,000 years ago until around 10,000 years ago. ''Bison antiquus'' was one of the most common large herbivores in North America d ...

'' skull, painted with a red zigzag. The Cooper Bison Skull is oldest known painted object in North America.Bement 176 The skull is currently in the collection of the

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is the officially designated natural history museum for the State of Oklahoma, located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. The museum was founded in 1899 by an act of the Oklahoma Terri ...

at the Norman campus of the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

Notes

References

Additional information

* Bement, Leland C
''Bison hunting at Cooper site: where lightning bolts drew thundering herds.''
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999: 37, 43, 176. .
Bement, Leland C. "Folsom Bison Hunting on the Southern Plains." Arrowheads.com
Accessed November 14, 2016.

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20161115133249/http://nr_shpo.okstate.edu/shpopic.asp?id=02000171 "National Register Properties in Oklahoma: Cooper Bison Kill Site (34HP45)".Image of arrowheads found at the site. Accessed November 14, 2016. {{Prehistoric technology Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma Buffalo jumps Geography of Harper County, Oklahoma National Register of Historic Places in Harper County, Oklahoma 9th-millennium BC establishments