Amazing Discovery
"No question, this is the richest site I've seen in my 40 year career," confirms Hills. "You normally don't find the combination of all these animals together. They've all been seen before, but in isolation. We have all of the tracks, all from the same soil. It allows us to see them together at the same time."
Kooyman jumps in. "This is a really unique picture, the best we've had of these animals in their environment at the time period just before they became extinct and it's in association with humans."
From the number of tracks and bones, they can surmise these were healthy sized herds, Hills adds.
Kooyman confirms that, because of the secure carbon-dating of the animal bones, they can be certain of the age of the stone tools. "There's a scattering of simple tools - it looks like a place where people were watching for game...In the larger area, we found scrapers for taking flesh off hides."
Hills and McNeil reflect for a moment on what they were able to envision when they first realized what they'd stumbled upon. Looking out across the sandy bottom of the reservoir, they could suddenly see it all "through the eyes of the hunters." Yet they also had the perspective of knowing this was one of the last "snapshots" of that time, since the environment and climate were shifting. They envision low shrubs in a broad, grassy valley, a gentle slope, a gathering place by the river where animals have come to drink...and be hunted. A towering six tonne, fully grown woolly mammoth bull, a relative of today's African elephant, plods along the shore. A herd of North American camel forage nearby, the last of a million year-old species soon to disappear. Shaggy muskoxen, stocky pony-sized horses, and giant bison trample the ground. Thousands of smaller animals - badgers, wolves, muskrat, beaver, rabbits, and ground squirrels - fill the scene. And standing where today's scientists stand - our prehistoric forerunners waiting for game.
"New tracks were appearing and disappearing all the time." Paul McNeil
This article has been reprinted with kind permission from Legacy, Alberta's Cultural Heritage Magazine, and the author.
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