‘The perfect trap’: Archeologist reflects on decades at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

By Bill Graveland Renowned Alberta archeologist Bob Dawe has stood at this spot, near the windy, windswept craggy sandstone cliff of the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in southern Alberta, thousands of times during his career. But his mind always goes back to what it was like at the site of what was basically an early abattoir for thousands of years. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is about 150 kilometres south of Calgary. The silver ribbon of the Oldman River, an integral water source for the Blackfoot people, is just a couple of kilometres away. The jump was used for thousands of years by Indigen…