NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

January 20, 2000

Plains Folk: Unearthing Bones and Humility

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©2000 Plains Folk

The rise of a commercial bison industry on the Great Plains has its romantic echoes of the Old West, but it also is acquiring the trappings of animal science--such as selective breeding. Not everyone is comfortable with this. Some say this is messing with Mother Nature. One of the founding fathers of the industry--Ken "Doc" Throlson of New Rockford, N.D.--says not so. The objective of bison breeding today, he says, is to restore the animal to what it was in the 19^th century--the way it looks in photographs of the 1860s and 1870s.

"When you look at the buffalo nickel," Ken argues, "that tremendously high hump, and that, excuse me, (blunt phrase referring to the overly slender hindquarters of the beast)--that wasn't the real buffalo, that was what the artist saw. How could that animal outrun a horse? How could he migrate? He couldn't."

A proper bison should be more on the level and should have good, wide hindquarters. Unfortunately, many bison in the 20^th century came to look too much like the ones on buffalo nickels, and the reason was inbreeding in park herds and small private herds.

"Inbreeding, it shows up in direct relationship to how large an area and how many animals there are," explains the Doc. "When you have a big park system, it takes more years to catch up with you, but it does.

"And if you don't believe me," he adds, "you go and look at these bones that you dig up at these buffalo jumps. We've only got this animal half-way back to where he was."

I got to thinking about what Doc said when I read a new book from the University of Oklahoma Press, "Bison Hunting at Cooper Site: Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds." The author, Leland C. Bement, is an archeologist with the Oklahoma Archeological Survey.

The odd thing about archeologists is that they do interesting, exciting work, but when they write it up, the result is dry as talcum. This fellow Bement, though, lets a little of the excitement come through.

The Cooper site, a jump where Paleo-Indians killed and butchered bison, "has become recognized as one of the premier Folsom sites in North America." Folsom points, flint projectile points that first came to notice of archeologists some 70 years ago, date back as long as 12,000 years and have been found from New Mexico to Alberta. Generally they come in association with bison kills.

The Cooper site was brought to the attention of the archeological survey by a game warden. It is located on bluffs of the Beaver River, in northwestern Oklahoma. Sorry, Doc, the bones here are those of Bison antiquus, the ancient bison, and so we can't cite them as evidence for modern bison conformation.

Bement first visited the Cooper site in 1992. A Folsom point was found the following year, sparking more interest and excavations.

Bement's sense of humor comes out when he describes the events of 11 July 1994--how the workers at the site "carried on a constant chatter, some of which occasionally touched on archeological matters." Then came the big find: Bement was removing dirt from a bison skull, and "as the forehead of this skull was uncovered, a brilliant red zigzag line was exposed ... The zigzag of red stood in stark contrast to the bleached white skull surface and was visible from all areas of the bonebed. To say there was an instant of incredulous awe does not quite describe that moment of discovery."

The zigzag line has become known as "the lightning bolt." What it represents, this Folsom yawp, no one knows, and that's good. We need mysteries to keep us humble.

###

Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136

Click here to download a photo of Tom Isern suitable for printing.
(isern.tif - 512KB b&w photo)

Click here to download a photo of Tom Isern suitable for printing.
(isern-h.tif - 426KB b&w photo)