Alpine Sentinels

Tony Taylor

Description

They were blamed for lost objects, unexplained events, good luck and bad. The Arapaho said they were responsible for the fierce storms that slashed down the rivers and canyons off the Continental Divide. They said this wind was generated by a horn the Sheep Eaters blew.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Brushhog Books
• Date de parution: 22 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909270602
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Alpine Sentinels A Chronicle of the Sheep Eater Indians
By Tony Taylor
Published by Brushhog Books PO. Box 129 Hailey, Idaho 83333 [e-mail] Copyright ©2001, 2012
Book design and production by T-graphics, Hailey, Idaho.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About the Author

Chapter 1
Mummy Cave, located near Cody, Wyoming, is a rock shelter 45 miles up the North Fork of the Shoshone River. Not far upstream, just beyond the river’s headwaters, Sylvan Pass affords an unparalleled view of Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone Park and to the west the Continental Divide. The cave is strategically located in the midst of important ridge systems. They run out like tendrils of a web, connecting adjacent sub-systems and major ranges that continue for hundreds of miles towards all points of the compass. It is the heart of the Northern Rocky Mountains and the home of an ancient mountain people who have lived there for thousands of years. The cave is 150 feet wide, 40 feet deep and situated well above the river that flows 40 feet away. Found by Bob Edgar in the early 1960s, it was the end of a search initiated by Dr. Harold McCracken, then director of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody. Since its discovery, it has proven to have great impact on the northwest plains prehistory.
It was first excavated in the summer of 1963. In late July, the partially mummified body of an adult North American male was recovered in the southeast corner of the cave. He was found dressed in a sheepskin robe, knees drawn to his chest, and facing the back wall of the cave. After burial, a semicircle of stones had been placed between the body and the front of the cave.
Radiocarbon dating from a piece of the robe showed the burial date to be 1,230 years before present. Excavation continued in 1964, ending in November with 13 verified occupation levels. In 1965 excavation expanded throughout the cave recovering thousands of artifacts. By 1966, 28 feet below the original surface, the occurrence of cultural artifacts ceased. Radiocarbon dating on the bottom levels (levels 23 and 24) indicated their origin to be over 9,000 years before present.
The stratigraphy of the cave, sequential layers of occupational evidence, does not prove annual or continual use for the last 9,000 years. Each layer and content represents a period of time. The subsistence practices of most hunting and gathering societies dictate extensive travel over well defined areas to exploit seasonal opportunities to harvest plants and animals. Caves afford excellent places for shelter and for the same reason protect long historical records from the elements. However, they do not suit the fluid lifestyle of people exposed to the annual cycles of the millennia. These layers could represent 30 years or 300 years, depending on housekeeping practices, climatology or fluctuations in local populations of game.
A long period of mild winters would find the people living in wickiups in sheltered canyons and creek bottoms that were close to the high ridge systems where game such as mountain sheep wintered. The wind on these higher and more exposed elevations scoured the slopes of snow and provided greater mobility for both people and sheep. Southwestern exposures received sun all day from October to April and wherever refuge from the wind could be found on these hillsides, the temperatures would be tolerable during most of the daylight hours. The hunters lived near and harvested these animals as skill and circumstance would allow. When the snow pack melted and other food sources became available at other elevations, the small family groups would move to these places and take advantage of what the country had to offer. A season of heavy snow or little forage for the bighorn sheep would drive the herd to lower elevations and the people would follow, using the cave for this period. They could stay into the late spring taking advantage of enhanced fish runs, floral profusion and early game procreation caused by the prior weather anomaly. Tender roots could be dug and prepared, an abundance of fish could be caught, filleted and dehydrated, and a large supply of preservable food could be harvested. Much of the dried vegetable matter was stored in cone shaped baskets and buried in the dry recesses of a cave or cliff overhang. Similar caches have been found in desert sites with contents that were still edible after hundreds of years. The cave may be frequented for several generations by the same family group and then due to cataclysm in the weather, in the family, or in the regional populations of flora and fauna, the site would be abandoned.
The statigraphy of Mummy Cave reveals a long and stable record of successful hunting and gathering with projectile point styles typical of the Great Basin people. It suggests direct connection to the Great Basin Indians, most specifically the Northern Shoshone. Of over 2,000 bones and bone fragments in the collection, mountain sheep (ovis canadensis) was the most common, occurring in all but two of 24 levels. The projectile point chronology from the collection was well dated with radiocarbon tests on organic material resting in the same strata. It has become a standard for typing regional points, especially between 4,500 and 7,000 before present. It is identified academically as the "Mummy Cave Complex."
Site features, large items that contain many interrelated artifacts, included prehistoric hearths of various types, a moccasin cache, the mummy on level three and a firewood cache one level below. On level six and seven, several storage pits, dated well before the use of bow and arrow, show a heavy prehistoric reliance on seeds and vegetable matter. Reaching down to the eighteenth level and back almost five millennia, a rock alignment was found. It consisted of stone slabs, set on edge three feet from a corresponding hearth to block incoming canyon winds. In close association, extending into level seventeen, a ram sheep skull was found that suggested ceremonial function relevant to the alignment and provides possible testimony to ancient spiritual ties with this locally abundant animal.
The mummy had been one of the first arrow makers. Smaller corner notched points with long shoulders and serrated edges start at this level and continue to present. Prior point types were larger, side notched and more appropriate for casting with an atlatl (a notched stick used to cast small spears with greater mechanical advantage). The individual was not diminutive (five feet, five inches) but did fall in a category shorter than normal (five feet, seven inches was considered normal). He died at an age of 35 to 40 with no observable bone abnormalities or injuries. An examination of coporlites (petrified fecal material) within the body cavity revealed a spring diet that was primarily vegetable and a presence of spruce pollen that suggests burial in the late spring. His hair was cut short in front and the remainder tied back with cottonwood cordage. The robe, hair side in, was stained with red ochre. Over 230 fragments of this iron oxide pigment occurred in all major levels of the site. Two high topped sheep skin moccasins cached beneath a large stone slab on the same level as the mummy were fabricated with grass cushions and a "U" shaped willow stick was inserted, toe to instep, to keep its shape. Like the robe, it was fashioned fur side in to insure warmth and a snug fit.
The artifact collection from Mummy Cave provides an important record of human occupation in the Rocky Mountain region. In its totality it reveals technology, food preferences, relationships with environmental resources and cultural history. The first four levels include some of the best preserved artifacts and illustrate details similar to kindred mountain dwellers in the alpine defiles of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Projectile points from all levels were materials common to the North Fork of the Shoshone with a high frequency of Yellowstone obsidian in the mix. An exception on the third level, beads, harpoon tips and a stone material not common to the immediate area, could be the result of a trade expedition to the Big Horn Basin area or temporary occupation by another people. Arrow shafts of willow and cottonwood were compound and matched the same ingenious fashion found in Wickiup Cave which will be described later. Food bone included mountain sheep, deer, elk, moose, bison, bear, beaver, porcupine, rabbits, rodents and various fish and birds. Sixteen hundred pieces and fragments of faunal food bone shows a healthy disposition for this veal-like delicacy. Basketry fragments were found on levels six and seven (4,000 years before present). One, on level three, was stained on both sides with red ochre and coated with pitch on the inside. Only one potsherd was found. It was situated in the top level and dated at 370 years before present. Stone and bone tools, pipes, metates, cordage, tanned leather scraps, and wild onion husks augment a list of rich finds that will help define this life way with further study.
Hughes, Susan "Mummy Cave Revisited" 1987 Wormington H. M. "Ancient Man in North America" 1964