Bison Heights: A Late Holocene Bison Kill Site on Idaho's Snake River Plain

Abstract

Recent excavations at a narrow draw in close proximity to Tomcat Cave, one of Idaho's cold storage caves, exposed a concentration of charred mammal bones and a rock lined hearth in association with an elaborate series of rock alignments. Much of the long bone falls within the bovid size range (bison) and appears to be the byproduct of stone boiling or bone soup making. Radiocarbon dates from the hearth, and the presence of Intermountain ware ceramics, Rose Spring and Desert Side-notched points indicate use of the site during the very late Holocene. Analogous artifacts recovered from the mouth of Tomcat Cave indicate that hunting activities at Bison Heights and use of the cave likely coincided. The rock features at the site and those documented elsewhere within the region indicate that narrow topographic features were used as procurement locales for big game. However, limited amount of bone recovered near these features indicates that only a small number of animals were acquired during single hunting events.