ICE PATCH HUNTING IN THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE AREA, ROCKY MOUNTAINS, USA: WOOD SHAFTS, CHIPPED STONE PROJECTILE POINTS, AND BIGHORN SHEEP (OVIS CANADENSIS)

Abstract

Ice patches and the alpine are important elements of the sociocultural landscape of the Greater Yellowstone Area, and they transcend the jurisdictional boundaries that divide the lands on which they occur. The ice patch record complements traditional sources of archaeological knowledge through the addition of well-dated organic artifacts, such as shafts from hunting tools, recovered in a readily recognizable context. This paper examines the types of wood used in the manufacture of hunting implements recovered at Greater Yellowstone Area ice patches through the analysis of nine unique wooden shafts and shaft fragments from five sites. Five shafts are birch (Betulaspp.), two are willow (Salixspp.), one is fir (Abiessp.), and one is pine (Pinussp.). The shafts included in this analysis range in age from 9230 ± 25 B.P. to 215 ± 20 B.P. Diagnostic Oxbow and Pelican Lake chipped stone projectile points recovered in association with ice patches provide additional temporal resolution regarding use of these features. One of the four sites that yielded wooden shafts contains a record of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) hunting between 3885 ± 25 B.P. and 879 ± 23 B.P.