Plano tradition
The Plano tradition, which existed between 8000 and 5000 B.C.E., marks a significant period in North American prehistory characterized by the hunting of large Pleistocene mammals, particularly giant bison. Following the earlier Clovis and Folsom periods, the Plano culture is often discussed in conjunction with Folsom, as both shared similar subsistence practices. The people of the Plano tradition were nomadic, following bison herds across the Great Plains from Alaska to Texas, and relied on sophisticated hunting techniques, including mass-kill strategies that required community collaboration. They utilized a variety of stone tools, exhibiting advanced flint-knapping skills, to efficiently process their hunts.
Campsites were strategically located to offer vantage points for observing bison movements, and archaeological findings from sites like Olsen-Chubbuck and Lindenmeier reveal substantial evidence of bison hunting and butchering practices. The technological advancements seen in stone tool production and hunting methods indicate a rich cultural complexity within the Plano tradition. As the populations of giant bison declined, likely due to climatic changes, the Plano tradition also waned, although its legacy influenced subsequent hunting practices in the region for centuries to come. The hunting of bison remained a vital survival strategy for later Indigenous groups until the dramatic reductions in bison populations caused by European settlement in the nineteenth century.
Plano tradition
Category: Prehistoric tradition
Date: 8000-5000 b.c.e.
Location: Plains
Culture affected: Plano
The Plano tradition, dating 8000 and 5000 b.c.e., represents the last period of the hunting of now-extinct large Pleistocene mammals, especially giant bison, in North America. It is preceded by the Clovis (9500 to 9000 b.c.e.) and the Folsom (9000 to 8200 b.c.e.) periods, although Folsom and Plano are usually discussed together. Sites of this tradition are found over a wide area of North America, ranging from Alaska to Texas.
While Clovis peoples hunted mammoth, Folsom/Plano subsistence was oriented toward the pursuit of the now-extinct giant longhorn bison (Bison antiquus and Bison occidentalis) and later the modern Bison bison. Folsom/Plano cultures are known from occasional campsites and a large number of kill sites marked by beds of bison bone with stone artifacts. Tool technology was characterized by a wide variety of projectile point and knife styles used for killing and butchering. Folsom points, marked by a broad channel scar that runs most of the length of the point, belong to the fluted-point tradition that begins with Clovis. Plano cultures are associated with several unfluted styles, among them Plainview/Firstview, Eden, Scottsbluff, Claypool, Milnesand, Agate Basin, San Jon, and Angostura.
Plano Lifeways
The Folsom/Plano peoples ranged across the Great Plains in small, nomadic groups that followed seasonal rounds conditioned by the migration of bison herds. On these migrations, they took advantage of several sources for fine-grained, knappable stone. This material was used to manufacture points, knives, scrapers, and other tools, many of which required a high degree of skill in pressure flaking. Bison hunting, although likely to have included single-animal kills, was made very productive through the employment of mass-kill techniques. These included driving animals over cliffs or into natural traps, such as ditches and arroyos, box canyons, stream channels, and crescent-shaped sand dunes, and then killing them with spears. Such hunting would have required extensive knowledge of bison behavior as well as intensive investments of energy in tracking and stalking. These techniques would have required the participation of more than a single family and would have provided enough meat and hides for several bands. Animal resources such as skins, meat, bone, and marrow were efficiently utilized, often with very little waste.
Plano Archaeological Sites
Plano campsites tend to be situated on knolls or hills from which watering holes and bison herds could be observed. Lindenmeier is the largest known camp associated with the Folsom people. It was located on the banks of a marshy lake in northeastern Colorado, now buried under sediments. Excavations revealed remains of hearths with broken tools and discarded bones that have been dated to approximately 9000 b.c.e. Bison bones were the most numerous, but bones of wolf, coyote, fox, hare, rabbit, turtle, deer, and antelope were also present. The large collection of stone tools included more than 250 Folsom points. The site appears to have been occupied by at least two different groups, based on differences in the size of projectile points and the fact that some were made of obsidian from a source in New Mexico, whereas others were made of material from Wyoming. The wide range of raw materials utilized by Folsom/Plano peoples suggests that they were covering vast distances in cyclical migrations.
The Olsen-Chubbuck site, in eastern Colorado near the Kansas state line, provides an example of a large-scale bison kill. At around 8200 b.c.e., almost two hundred bison (Bison occidentalis) were trapped when they were stampeded down a steep hillside into a narrow arroyo. The age of the animals, which included calves, yearlings, and bison of both sexes, suggests that the kill took place in the spring. The composition of piles of bones indicates that the animals were butchered in a consistent pattern, beginning with skinning and removal of hump meat and proceeding from the front to the hindquarters of the animals. Among the tools used were Firstview (Plainview) points, knives, scrapers, and cobbles to break bones for the extraction of marrow. Some of the chert used to make tools came from sources in Texas, supporting models for the seasonal migrations of Folsom/Plano peoples across a wide geographical range.
The Casper site in central Wyoming provides evidence for the slaughter of a small herd of bison around 6000 b.c.e. The animals were driven into the central concavity of a parabolic sand dune, where they were killed and butchered. The predominance of young animals in this bone bed suggests a degree of selectivity in the size of animals taken. Butchering was done efficiently, with deliberate stacking of bones. At the Hawken site in the Bighorn Basin of northeastern Wyoming, bison were killed when small herds were driven upstream into an increasingly narrow, steep-sided arroyo until they were wedged against one another and trapped at its box canyon terminus, where they were killed by hunters with spears. The Horner site, also in northeastern Wyoming, has evidence of two bison kills spaced approximately a thousand years apart. Bison may have been corralled with drive lines; excavator George Frison suggests the practice of frozen caching of partially butchered carcasses for utilization at different times.
Plano Technology
In general, Folsom/Plano populations practiced a more sophisticated use of natural resources than did their predecessors. They covered much greater geographical ranges, probably moving with seasonal migrations of bison herds, and took advantage of several different sources of lithic materials. In addition to improvements in stone tool manufacture, there were significant technological advances in the ways that animals were slaughtered, butchered, and utilized. The wide variety of projectile point styles suggests the gradual emergence of distinct cultural groups whose identities became strengthened through periodic episodes of cooperative hunting.
The Plano tradition comes to an end with the decline of populations of giant bison, probably precipitated by climatic changes that reduced the size and range of their modern descendants for several thousand years. Patterns that evolved from Plano, however, continued for thousands of years. The hunting of bison remained one of the most important strategies for survival in the Plains until European settlers slaughtered bison to near-extinction in the nineteenth century.
Bibliography
Frison, George C., ed. The Casper Site: A Hell Gap Bison Kill on the High Plains. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
Frison, George C., and Lawrence D. Todd, eds. The Horner Site: The Type Site of the Cody Cultural Complex. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1987.
Irwin, H. T., and H. M. Wormington. “Paleo-Indian Tool Types in the Great Plains.” American Antiquity 365 (1970): 24-34.
Wheat, Joe Ben. “The Olsen-Chubbuck Site: A Paleo-Indian Bison Kill.” Vol. 37 in American Antiquity. Washington, D.C.: Society for American Archaeology, 1972.
Wilmsen, Edwin N. Lindenmeier: A Pleistocene Hunting Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.