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.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ArkushB.2002Archaeology of the Rock Springs Site: A Multicomponent Bison Kill and Processing Camp in Curlew Valley, Southeastern Idaho, Boise State University Monographs in Archaeology No. 1.
2.
BinfordL.1980Willow Smoke and Dogs Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation, American Antiquity, 45, pp. 4–20.
3.
ButlerB.1968An Introduction to the Archaeological Investigations in the Pioneer Basin Locality of Eastern Idaho, Tebiwa, 11, pp. 1–30.
4.
ButlerB.1978A Guide to Understanding Idaho Archaeology (3rd Edition): The Upper Snake River and Salmon River Country, A Special Publication of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, Pocatello.
5.
FranzenJ.1980A Class II Cultural Resource Inventory of Areas in and Adjacent to the Big Desert Planning Unit, Idaho. Report on file, Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Falls District, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
6.
Gifford-GonzalezD.1993Gaps in the Zooarchaeological Analyses of Butchery: In Gender an Issue? In From Bones to Behavior: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains, HudsonJ. (ed.), pp. 181–200. Occasional Paper No. 21. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
7.
GoughS.1990Cultural Resource Investigations of the Bonneville Power Administration's Goshen-Drummond No. 1 Transmission Line, Southeastern Idaho.Eastern Washington University Reports in Archaeology and History.
8.
GreeleyR. and KingJ.1977Volcanism on the Snake River Plain, Idaho: A Comparative Planetary Geology Guidebook, prepared for the Office of Planetary Geology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C.
9.
GruhnR.1961The Archaeology of Wilson Butte Cave, Southcentral Idaho, Occasional Papers of the Idaho State College Museum6, Pocatello.
10.
HenriksonL.1993Test Excavations at 10LN94: The Ogden Site. Reports of Investigations 93-68, on file, Bureau of Land Management Shoshone District, Shoshone, Idaho.
11.
HenriksonL.2002Ponds, Rivers and Bison Freezers: Evaluating a Behavioral Ecological Model of Hunter-Gatherer Mobility on Idaho's Snake River Plain. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene.
12.
HenriksonL.2003Bison Freezers and Hunter-Gatherer Mobility: Archaeological Analysis of Cold Lava Tube Caves on Idaho's Snake River Plain. Plains Anthropologist, 48, pp. 263–285.
13.
HenriksonL.2004Frozen Bison and Fur Trapper's Journals: Building a Prey Choice Model for Idaho's Snake River Plain, Journal of Archaeological Science, 31, pp. 903–916.
14.
HolmerR.1986Projectile Points of the Intermountain West, in Anthropology of the Desert West: Essays in Honor of Jesse D. Jennings, CondieC. and FowlerD. (eds.), pp. 89–115. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 110, Salt Lake City.
15.
KuntzM.CovingtonH., and SchorrL.1992An Overview of Basaltic Volcanism of the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho, in Regional Geology of Eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming, LinkP.KuntzM., and PlattL. (eds.), pp. 227–267. Geological Society of America Memoir 179.
16.
LupoK.2001Archaeological Skeletal Part Profiles and Differential Transport: An Ethnoarchaeological Example from Hadza Bone Assemblages, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 20, pp. 361–378.
17.
OliverJ.1993Carcass Processing by the Hadza: Bone Breakage from Butchery to Consumption, in From Bones to Behavior: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains, HudsonJean (ed.), pp. 200–227. Occasional Paper No. 21. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
18.
PlewM.PavesicM., and DavisM.1987Archaeological Investigations at Baker Caves I and III: A Late Archaic Component on the Eastern Snake River Plain, Archaeological Reports 5, Boise State University, Boise.
19.
SpethJ.1983Bison Kills and Bone Counts: Decision Making by Ancient Hunters, University of Chicago Press.
20.
SwansonE.Jr.1972Birch Creek: Human Ecology in the Cool Desert of the Northern Rocky Mountains 9,000 B.C.-A.D. 1850, The Idaho State University Press, Pocatello.
21.
ThomasD.1983The Archaeology of Monitor Valley, 1. Epistemology, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume 58: Part 1. New York.
