ICE AGE AFFAIRS
From Stanford’s publications and unpublished documents now housed at DMNS, we can sketch out events that took place around the time the last ice age ended on what is today the Jones’ farm. According to recently measured radiocarbon dates, roughly 10,800 years ago, a group of Paleoindian hunters took advantage of the undulating river terrain.
In a shallow draw, or arroyo, the hunters piled branches and shrubs into an arrangement that would channel herd animals in a certain direction. They then chased a nursery herd (cows, calves, and only a few bulls) into the confined arroyo space where the animals could be more easily killed and butchered with spears and stone knives.
Archaeologists who specialize in the study of animal bones can determine the season in which creatures were killed. Assuming ice age bison bred like modern bison, roughly 80 percent of calves were born within a few weeks of each other in the spring. Looking at which teeth the calves had grown, the archaeologists can estimate their age at death—that is, the amount of time since their spring births.
Based on these patterns, it seems the Jones-Miller site contained remains from two kill events: one in spring and one in fall. Unfortunately, we cannot tell if those events occurred during the same or sequential calendar years, the same decade, or even the same century. Radiocarbon dating does not give enough precision.
Archaeologists can also determine how the animals were butchered by studying the patterning of cut marks on the bones. Moreover, at the Jones-Miller site, different bison parts rested in different spots—legs in one pile over here, ribs in another over there, and so on. The spatial distribution of these parts provided clues about how past people made use of the carcasses.
By any measure, butchering a single bison is a feat. Doing so tens or even hundreds of times is a colossal undertaking.
Given the abundance of dead bison at the site, it appears the butchers were not terribly interested in conserving meat. On the contrary, based on cut mark patterns, they left some usable body parts behind. The question is why.
Perhaps they simply had an overabundance, more than they could consume. Or they might have intentionally left meat for their carnivore competitors such wolves and coyotes, with whom they shared a complex ecosystem. Indeed, abundant evidence of carnivore gnawing on many of the Jones-Miller bones helps archaeologists understand the complicated relationships between people, other animals, and the rest of the environment as the last ice age gave way to the more comfortable Holocene.