Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump · Why the Buffalo Were Driven Over

Beneath a cliff in Alberta lie buffalo bones piled up over thousands of years. The peoples of the plains drove the herds along a lane marked out with stone cairns towards the edge; the animals went over, and those below dealt with the meat and the hides. The method was in use for more than five thousand years.

The name comes from an account of a young man who stood at the foot of the cliff to watch the animals fall more clearly, and was crushed by them.

The site is a World Heritage site, and the bone layers below the cliff are more than ten metres deep. The interpreters say: this is not a place of slaughter, it is their storehouse.

Historical Mysteries / Alberta · Canada / 3600 BC