Douglas H. MacDonald

Full of interesting stuff, but uneven. Author Douglas MacDonald provides lists of archaeological sites in Montana and neighboring states and provinces, organized by time; Paleoindian; Early, Middle and Late Archaic; Late Prehistoric. This approach allows discussion of cultural evolution and there are a lot of interesting things to learn. In no particular order:


* Folsom points are a mystery. The characteristic is the “channel” – a large, single flake taken off the axis on each side. The catch is there’s no reason to believe the channel did anything useful; experiments with modern-made Folsom points don’t show any difference in penetration or accuracy if there’s a channel or not. Flaking the channel was risky – between 30-60% of Folsom points were broken while trying to flake the channel, and it was the last thing done in making the point, after there had already been a lot of labor.

* Bison hunting went through periods of popularity. For example, at the beginning of the Middle Archaic period around 80% of the bones in sites are pronghorns; by the end they are 90% bison.

* When bison were hunted, it was often done with “buffalo jumps”; there are buffalo jump sites with 20000 bison skeletons.

* The bow and arrow doesn’t seem to have been invented until pretty late – around 500 CE. Prior to that it was all atlatls. However, once archery was introduced it displaced atlatls very quickly. Arrow points required less material and could be made of poorer stone than atlatl points, and you could shoot a bow from concealment but had to stand to use an atlatl.

* Based on continuity of cultural remains, the Blackfoot and Shoshone people appear to have occupied the same territory for around 6000 years, which is a lot longer than most European or Asian peoples have occupied theirs.


There are drawbacks to this approach, though. If a site has multiple occupation periods, it’s listed multiple times – for example, Mummy Cave. There are so many sites listed that none gets more than cursory treatment.


Good maps, photographs and charts, and an extensive bibliography. However, there’s no listing of sites that are actually open to the public; in a few cases the text will mention that there’s a visitor’s center, but there are no directions for getting to any of them. There’s a glossary, but no indication in the main text that a term will appear there; for example, MacDonald states Folsom points are “pressure flaked” without explaining what that means. (“Percussion flaking” is done by banging two rocks together. “Pressure flaking” uses a tool – ancients used antler, modern flintknappers often use a copper rod – and hand pressure to spall of pieces of rock). Still a useful book, not just for Montana but the whole northern Great Plains.
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