Fincastle kill site layered in mystery
ANSWERS REMAIN ELUSIVE FOR LOCAL ARCHEOLOGICAL TEAM
Fourteen years after its first excavation, answers at the Fincastle bison kill site remain elusive.
Why did these ancient people come to this region of southern Alberta 2,500 years ago bearing artifacts from 1,000 kilometres away? Who were they? And why did they create such elaborate upright ceremonial art pieces from the bones of the animals they killed? Why did they plough them so deep into the mud that no human eye would see them again for the next two and half millenia?
It’s a tantalizing puzzle like no other she has struggled with in her career, says Shawn Bubel, a professor of archeology at the University of Lethbridge, who has led excavations at the Fincastle site for over a decade.
“We are pretty confident in our understanding of how the hunters hunted the animals found there, the degree of processing they used, and the time of season they were there,” she says.
“We are also confident about the dating of this site at about 2,500 years ago. We are confident we understand the nitty gritty of the site, but I don’t know if we will ever understand the ceremonial aspects of the site.”
This is what Bubel does know. The Fincastle kill site was a one-time event, not an ongoing kill site used year after year like one would see at other local sites such as Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump, for instance. The site’s terrain then was similar to what it is today, marshy with pools of standing water surrounded by sand dunes. The people likely ambushed the bison while they were drinking, with the marshy ground preventing the animals’ quick escape. The hunting party was quite large, and the kill took place in the autumn — likely in preparation for the hard winter months ahead.
But Bubel’s mind keeps drifting back to those ceremonial uprights. Only one other site in Canada has been discovered with similar features; features, she says, which seem on the surface more closely associated with the elaborate burial traditions one might see at the Sonota Complex and among the Indigenous cultures of the South Dakota region 1,000 years later in time than the Fincastle Site.
“There are lots of ceremonial things going on at this time in history (circa 500 B.C.), with the medicine wheels and such,” acknowledges Bubel, “but what’s going on at those sites is different from what we see happening at Fincastle. What’s going on at a medicine wheel is clearly not what is going on at this kill site, but it is all part of the ceremonial realm of these (historic) peoples, right?”
The fact that the site is 1,000 years older than researchers expected, says Bubel, makes it so even modern Blackfoot Elders, with centuries of teaching and local knowledge handed down to them, have had difficulty deciphering the intent of these ancient ancestors of their people at the Fincastle site.
“Lots of Elders and First Nation community members have participated in the project and have come to the project,” she says. “They all feel the same way that I do; that these were offerings. But offerings to what? They are not sure.”
Bubel says she is proud of all the work she, her colleagues and her students have done, and continue to do, at any number of sites in southern Alberta, but she knows for an archeologist the Fincastle site is the find of a lifetime.
“We are passionate about understanding it, and building on the knowledge we’ve got,” Bubel confirms. “There is something to be said about excavating a site that changes your understanding of this whole time period, and it is pretty humbling. It makes you stand back and realize that really we understand so little about the past. These sites help us to get a better appreciation and understanding of the history here (in southern Alberta).”