How to get your buff butchered

[bulldog]

Jim, you're a bright guy - gotta be to take those pictures and find nice relics. I suppose most of us have picked up teeth and arrowheads to but therein lies the problem. Now they are picked up and not associated with much else except their design and material to determine when or where they were made. Any idea if your points are 150 years old or 500 years old or 2000 years old? I've seen beautiful mounted collections and nobody having them even knows if they came from Ohio or California. Much less anything else about them. They just like the looks. You don't suppose maybe a bone you find might indicate a fossil being exposed in the hill above? Now that indicator is in yourn pocket. For reason they now throw pot hunters and cave diggers in the pokey. How's that for preaching?

I thought up last night how the old Injuns could have really easily gotten buffalo if they didn't have a jump to run them off. Bungee sticks! You just take a 10 ft. pole and sharpen it and dig a hole 2ft deep and put this in a narrow between a hill at a slant.. Then just yell and get the buffalo running thru that narrow. No doubt you would impale one. With 10 or so sticks and the whole tribe directing the buffalo you might get two or three killed. Then you settle down for a few months near there and feast away. A 2000 lb buffalo ought to feed 50 people for a month easily. Course that won't be all they eat. So, no need for any other weapons, almost. 50 years later there would be no trace of that bungee stick so nobody would know this is what they did. By the way, buffalo chips make a great fire when they are dried. Glow like coals - I've cooked over them. Cow pods too.

Now, to protect your buff from wolves and saber - tooth tigers, maybe a good thing would be to pile up buffalo chips on and around him and set them glowing and smoking. Kinda cook him in place too.

I still think it is funny that the scientifical experts have decided that 10,000 years ago the early people rushed to cut up a buffalo with stones and start carrying off that 2000lbs of meat and hide and parts - and this before useful horses except to eat. Well, maybe they had reason to drag this buffalo around, but wasn't one development in personkind that they settled down and farmed, for instance. Hard to carry off a farm or orchard. Now if it was me there, I'd settle my group near a hot spring, first choice., then a lake or river, second choice. I might send off a few braves to hunt or chase the buffalo to us, but I sure wouldn't be dragging the buffalo plus our gear all around the place too often if it could be avoided.

[Brent]

Bullfrog, it ain't about what you would have done, or could have done, or even about what they MAY have done. It's about what they actually DID. And they moved. They didn't live around hotspring 'cause there weren't any. This ain't about making up stories. It's about deciphering data. The two processes are quite

Brent

[Kelley O. Roos]

bulldog is one of those who will dispute, just to dispute. When the ole bulldog does his walk about, I'll bet his eyes are shut, that could explain why he can't find anything or maybe he is only looking for beer.

Interesting that some of bulldogs rants would coincide with an article about a new discovery in England, who would have thought a new discovery would be found there of all places. Stonehenge of all places, was the site of a new discovery, a religious complex was found along with ancient artifacts and we all know that Stonehenge is over 4,600 years old. Or how about all those old small town sites in Northern Scotland and the islands there that are being discovered with old toen sites. Even under the peatmoss in scotland artifacts are being discovered every day.

Kelley O.

[Oregon Bill]

Brent, this a potentially fascinating thread. I'm going to Africa this year or I would be hunting bison in Nebraska or SoDak, so next year for that. But as an obsidian knapper (and a darned poor one, by the way), occasional beaver skinner and devotee of paleo skills, I sure hope to hear more on your grad student's project. Based on where you are located, this will involve flint or chert tools, right?
By the way, here is a wonderful site for anyone interested in the ancient ways:
http://b16.ezboard.com/bpaleoplanet69529

[Brent]

Bill, I think they would be obsidian, but something else too and I forget what. The study site in question at the moment is western NE, but his project will expand to the entire plains, and he won't be able to use all types of stone to be sure.

Gotta run, see ya next week.

Brent

[ironramrod]

Kelley O.,

It's really wintery around here now; maybe -30 deg. by Sunday and a ton of wind--up to about 40 mph at times. My guess is that the real reason Bulldog is suddenly out and about is not for beer; probably looking for some free insulation for his dumpster.

Regards

[bulldog]

Brent, I agree what matters is not what I think or I do, but what they did 10,000 years ago. Now, how do you get there from here? As Ironramrod says, when it is cold out I look for free insulation in dumpsters. I can therefore project that anyone cold would want insulation. Now, cottonwood fluff is pretty good insulation to stuff in your boots. In fact, boots are pretty good to have. So, I would imagine they had boots and insulation in them boots. Trouble is, they don't last 10,000 years so you ain't going to know this.
Now, we know exactly where Lewis and Clark camped every night. Also, what they ate and how many ate and etc. That was 200 years ago but from the physical evidence we wouldn't know nothin; in fact, we can't even find one of thier camps even knowing where they are. Or, maybe we know a few suspect camps. So going back 10,000 years how is anyone darn sure them early Injuns moved every 6 days. So you find one short term huntin camp - maybe that had nothing to do with the main camp near the hot springs of which there is plenty in some places - like Hot Springs SD where they got a museum and I've see ancient elephants and saber tooths(I think) and etc there. A man in front even sells beautiful obsedian and aget points and knives he makes and they look authentic and are beautiful. Good prices too for such works of art. When I was a kid I never could figure out how to make an arrowhead and I tried for hours. I still can't make one but I think it has to do with knowing your aget and putting pressure not pounding and chipping like I used to try. The point (pun)being, that what I do, other's probably also did or tried or maybe did and so that is a thing to speculate about and maybe test or search. Now to me it wouldn't make sense to start hacking up a buffalo and loading him on everyones backs when you could just sit tight and eat 50 men for a month on said animal plus if you got other game that ol buff could last a season. And, if you were to get him in the fall you could sit tight and make them boots and stuff them with cotton wood fluff and dig into the hill and prepare for winter. Moving around every 6 days in that -30 cold Ironramrod speaks about doesn't seem too probable. Course, maybe i t only got down to 32 them days, but still sittin and eating fresh aged buff a nice warm lean to or hide over a berm beats walking around in my mind. That doesn't mean what them guys would do, but it is one perspecative on things. I suppose hard evidence will support the moving theory, but it ain't too hard if it is biased to certain presuppositories and limited selection of data. Look at the evidence they had for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Heck, Most Gneeral Colin Powell was on TV with at least 8 of them evidences collected by 1000 brilliant minds of the worlds most intelligent and scientific agency. The money they spend in one week could have supported 10,000 academic graduate students for 20 years. Anyway, the point is they was done proved wrong as not one of them weapons of mass destruction has been found yet. This is what is known as bias and selective appreciation of data. Some people just call it lying, but to lie you have to know the truth whereas when you're not sure but you want to please your boss you just give that selective guess or in other words the right answer for the programe pre determined for some other reasons but which needs a convincing scare factor to get everyone on board. Maybe Ima rambling here and using up this web site, so better just stop and go stoke the fire with them cardboards I found back of the grocery store. Got a whole pickup load. Got some other stuff too what me and the dog going to eat when I boils it. Goodnight to yall.

[bpesteve]

Brent: I'm not going until October, and in SW Kansas (with Lee Hawes), but if it will be of any help I'd be happy to have Erik along.

Steve (who by then may need some paleontology himself...)

[Trigger Dr]

Bulldog,
Yes, I have documentation on each of the items...the teeth documented by the vertebrate lab U of Mt. the others by respective state agencies teasked with that sort of thing.
NUFF SAID
jIM

[pete]

Brent; Maybe Erik could get 2-3 or what ever amount of people to chip in on the price of a buffalo with the understanding of what he would do and he could go out himself or with someone like you to get one. That's what I've done with the 3 I've killed. The meat and direct cost (Not including gas and hotel etc. of course) get's split up between all involved and I also get the experience.

[bobw]

Brent, this probably isn't going to sound good,maybe a little sexist but here goes. Maybe Erik ought to hire 2-3 handy (with sharp rocks) women to go with a Buffalo hunter and let them do the cutting, while he writes his notes. Cause you know those indian guys didn't cut no meat, that was women's work. Besides some strong guy using a sharp rock would bias the results whereas if it was done by women with less strength it might be closer to reality huh? Just a thought ,might make a hell of a video, why sure, bet a lot of these single forum members would be right interested in a woman who could cut up a buffalo with a sharp rock. .....bobw

[Tallperson]

This would be an interesting event to see. I watched Dr. Leakey (sp?) on a National geographic special many many many years ago wacking apart several different species of hooved critters in Africa with just a palm sized chunk of knapped flint. He was trying to reenact primitive man and their first use of tools.. That big ole' chunk of razor edged flint pieced out those critters snicker snack. I have used newly made flint knives on several occasions and they work very well.. and once you know the technique they are easier to sharpen than any metal knife...
I also am not so sure that those indigenous ladies would have been weaker that most modern men ... Like has been said .. THey did the work. They were in shape... Tallperson

[kamotz]

I agree with Tallperson, I bet one of them prehistoric little ladies
what did the butcherin back then could jerk a half-hitch outa the modern day couch potatoe's ass. No wonder they needed clubs to take advantage off of them.

[Josh A.]

I saw a deer quartered for transport with a rock. I have a cousin with a thick skull and he decided that a bow killed deer needed to be dressed with just a piece of flint. As I recall it didn't take much longer than with a knife. I suspect them indians where pretty good at that sort of thing. Kind of an interesting project.

We still have an old buffalo wallow on our ranch and flint tools and points are pretty common here. I even have a really nice biface blade sort thing.

Josh

[Brent]

Guys, I have no idea if women did the bulk of the butchering back then or not. We are talking 9000 ybp, not a century ago. What little I know of noneuro denizens of the plains is pretty limited to the tribes that were there when europeans showed up on the spot. But the folks we are interested in studying were there 9000 yrs before that. What they did, and how they did it, I do not presume to guess.

Brent