Head-Smashed-In Cliff Edge
Geography and human ingenuity combined to make this ridge near Fort Macleod an extraordinarily productive place for killing bison for thousands of years. Archaeologists have shown that Mummy Cave people, with their signature Bitterroot points, used Head-Smashed-In as early as 5,700 years ago. Further excavations may show that the jump is much older, perhaps nearly as old as the Bonfire Shelter Jump in Texas, which was used more than 10,000 years ago.
Photo courtesy of Heartland Associates, Inc.
Photo by Peter St. John and Dennis Pankiw.
