Abstract

Grasslands National Park is considering stocking Bison to replicate long term historical grazing patterns instead of current range management practices. This has led to several avenues of research that are focused on grazing habits of bison and their relationship to the park. With over 3000 recorded archaeological sites in the park, potential exists for archaeological data to contribute to the development of that understanding. However, since most recorded sites are simply surface indications and no excavated material or dates have been collected, it is a challenge to find avenues of research that can provide significant information. This presentation summarizes some recent experiments their results where attempts to mine existing data have been undertaken. One experiment was to relate archaeological distribution patterns to deep stratigraphic patterns. This work is progressing conjunction with Drs. Elena and Serguei Ponomarenko. A second experiment was to look at radiocarbon dated sites in the region to search out patterns of bison utilization. Some of the results and data gaps identified in these experiments will be discussed.