The bow and arrow hadn’t been invented yet, and wouldn’t be for more than 7,000 years. Paleo Indians hunted with atlatals and spears. Antelope, bison, beaver and bighorn sheep likely were abundant.
Archaeologists have already found ancient bone fragments from bison and beaver at the site. Platt pulls a chunk of ungulate bone from the wall of one trench. Bones like this were often crushed and boiled. The fat — melted from the marrow — was mixed with berries and used to cure meat in a product Platt referred to as pemmican.
“If you’re job was to go out and kill game for your family, you’d get pretty good at making tools,” Platt said. “It’s not a super-lengthy process. It only takes a skilled worker 15 to 20 minutes to complete each tool.”
Aside from cured meat, Paleo Indians turned to biscuit root — or wild carrot — along with cammas that still grows in abundance not far from here. Future generations made “cous cakes” by grinding roots into a powder and mixing it with water before baking it in an underground oven.
Stones cracked from the heat of fire lie scattered throughout the campsite. Platt spots small flakes of obsidian no larger than a penny — remnants of tool making. He picks them up from the dirt, explaining how a prehistoric oven might lay buried beneath our feet.
Steve Aaberg, a paleobotonist, has surveyed various sites around Montana to determine what Paleo Indians ate during their travels. Plant fiber alone won’t survive the test of time unless it’s been charred. So he is digging around fire pits and ovens looking for evidence of past diets. He’s already found a few charred seeds.
“We hope to find charred plant remains so we can get evidence of root processing,” he said. “To find those materials preserved, you have to get lucky.”
It helps knowing the flora that’s already out there; things like biscuit root, bitterroot, cammas and other edible plants. Most of them were here 9,000 years ago. Recipes may have been passed down through generations, though archaeologists have found little scientific or cultural evidence linking Paleo Indians with today’s Native Americans.
While the techniques in tool making changed among prehistoric man, so have modern dating techniques within scientific circles. Aaberg may not need the charred plant itself to form a hypothesis. A new form of DNA testing, or protein analysis, can read proteins off buried tools, even after thousands of years have passed.
“The plant and animal proteins will stick to the tools,” he said. “We’re hoping that as we submit some of these tools for testing, we’ll pick up traces of plant proteins to help us learn what they ate.”
The valley sweeps north toward the Bob Marshal Wilderness and south to the Garnett Mountains. The sage grows in clumps and the Blackfoot River runs quietly behind a distant knoll.
Such are the workings of time. The people who traveled through this mountain corridor proved hearty and adaptable. Their tools evolved and their styles changed, though archaeologists don’t entirely know why.
It’s in that bottom layer of soil, just below the ash, where archaeologists find the first indication of human presence in what would become Montana. People occupied North America beginning 11,500 years ago, though Platt admits that the dates are often disputed.
Back then, the Pleistocene era was coming to a close, yet glaciers still covered large portions of North America. Mammoth, bison, giant sloth and camels roamed the open tundra. Montana’s earliest people likely lived in small bands comprised of extended families. When traveling, they followed the major river valleys.
When the ice age came to a close, temperatures warmed. The environment changed. The emerging grasslands and expanded forests became less fertile. By about 9,000 years ago, the time Platt’s band of Paleo Indians camped here, most of the larger mammals had disappeared from the state.
Yet the chips of animal bone and stone tools buried here extend from the deepest layer of soil up to the surface. Some relics are as recent as the 19th century when European explorers, like Granville Stuart, arrived on the scene. Stuart, an early Montana cattle baron, traded with various tribes including the Nez Perce, Flathead, Kootenai and Kalispell.
“We have a layer cake of stratification with evidence of human occupation spread throughout it,” Pratt said. “I even found a button shell off an old cowboy’s shirt. We’re acting as detectives, piecing together what people did.”
Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or at mkidston@helenair.com.
***previous*** — ***next***
