Have You Seen A Buffalo Jump?

[Bethny]

As a kid i was so excited to learn that Buffalo are coming back. Not nearly as many exist now, but they aren't gone forever.

[kiwibird]

Fun fact, bison jumps were also thoroughly planned for and carefully coordinated (often with multiple tribes/bands participating). Basically, as soon as the jump was over, everyone gathered at the bottom of the jump and started processing the bison as quickly as possible. A lot of pemican was made too, so there was not nearly as much waste as one would assume.

[fiascotherd]

Fun Fact! Fishing with dynamite is SPECIFICALLY illegal in the USA.

[Samspadeslater]

Fun fact, here in Alberta Canada there is a place called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

[AuriofTheHooligans]

You didn't have to do that pilot like that Milo.

[LimeyLassen]

"Post Pleistocene Rage" is so good

[xmorphias]

have i seen a fruit fly?

yeah, i've flown before.

[feniaksfirings]

Fun fact - there actually were horses on North America before explorers/colonization. The species evolved here 55 million years ago, and some dispersed back to Europe and Asia via the Bering Strait land bridge. They died out in NA about 10000 years ago, not sure why.

[MidMorningFarmer]

I was the proud owner of 12 of these big bastards that I rescued from a research ranch. Bison can jump straight up into the air and easily clear a 6 foot fence. I found one on top of my 8 foot tall conex box, spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to get him down only to have him hop down like it was nothing. They can launch themselves forward like a gazelle and are pretty damn fast. Faster that us. They do not make great pets because they are eternally angry about what we did to their ancestors 😂

[engineerengifar]

Yeah I've seen a fruit fly. Airplane bathrooms have mirrors.

[melvinshine]

Also worth noting that indigenous peoples were hunting bison for centuries and there were still an estimated 60 million bison by the 1800s. Then western expansion happens, and they were nearly wiped out inside of 30 years.

[BlueBerry]

I will never find it funny that the animal is called "Bison Bison Bison", yet some French guys managed to forever have it called Buffalo

[shaswatjain]

That is essentially a minecraft farm and nothing will convince me otherwise

[diabolicaloverlord]

Head-smashed-in buffalo jump (yes that's the real name) is an amazing place to visit in Canada there's a great museum there.

[scout]

My Native history professor used to say that buffalo jumps demonstrate that indigenous people and communities were just as willing to use creative innovation to exploit the natural resources around them as any other group, dispelling the often racist stereotype of Native people as somehow mystically tied to the natural world and fundamentally ‘other’ and weak as a result (which was often used to justify their extermination by white settlers especially from the Removal period onward). Though of course as you mention, Buffalo Jumps were hugely different from the systematic extermination of the buffalo as genocidal violence.

[noahinson]

It's important to remember that while Indigenous Americans had an intimate, sustainable connection with their environment, they were not perfect. I'm Chickasaw and we decimated the white tail deer population in the southeastern US because of the deer skin trade. We must hold on to the positive aspects of our culture and disregard the aspects that are harmful.

[sydneeh]

As an Indigenous person from Canada, I am so excited to hear you talk about Buffalo Jump!
Bison are very front heavy, so as soon as they were herded over the edge, they flipped forward and would always hit head first, breaking their necks and dying instantly. If for some reason the Buffalo did not land correctly, there were other hunters waiting near the bottom to put the bulls down.

[mrjames]

This is also the origin for one of Wyomings weirdest town names, Chugwater, the area is surrounded by bluffs used for this so any early colonists in the area could hear the massive amount of buffalo running toward the bluff or falling to the bottom to the point it sounded like a train chugging along and the only thing they could think of that would cause that noise is a massive river or waterfall, hence Chugwater

[penguixyt]

From buffalo jumps, to crop irrigation, to long distance water based travel, and more, its insane how so many still try to paint our people as "primitive", we were and are as smart, resourceful, and have just as extensive histories as any European group. Thanks for covering this Milo! Keep on being awesome you googledebunker!

[naomigray]

As a Native (Osage), I appreciate your sensitivity and factual understanding as an archaeologist for our history. Those in the field have a bad rep with Indigenous folk for misrepresenting us and extraction of information. I love what you do for keeping it real and fair. ‘History’ and the ‘Past’ are two different things.