The Cooper Bison Kill Site is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

near Fort Supply in Harper County,

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

, United States. Located along the Beaver River, it was explored in 1993 and 1994 and found to contain artifacts of the

Folsom tradition The Folsom Complex is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 8500 BCE to c. 4000 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History. ...

, including arrowheads.Cooper Bison Kill Site (34HP45)
, Oklahoma Center for Geospatial Information. Accessed 2009-06-14. It is believed that these artifacts are the results of hunters killing bison in an arroyo. The hunters of this culture found the site continuously useful; the known artifacts are believed to be the results of three different hunts.Bement, Leland C. "Cooper Site." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.
Accessed May 30, 2016. ''Archaeology in America'' described the Cooper Site as "...a gully feeding the

North Canadian River The North Canadian River is a river, long, in Oklahoma in the United States. It is a tributary of the Canadian River, draining an area of U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset/Watershed Boundary Dataset, area data covering North ...

," which contained evidence of three separate kills, with between twenty and thirty animals in each kill. All three kills occurred during late summer or early fall, and each kill contained the remains of cows, calves and young bulls. Tools found at the site consisted only of projectile points and large flake knives. The site has been dated to 10,900-10,200 years ago. In 2002, the site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. A unique find at the site was that of a ''

Bison antiquus ''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent dur ...

'' skull, painted with a red zigzag. The Cooper Bison Skull is oldest known painted object in North America.Bement 176 The skull is currently in the collection of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the Norman campus of the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

Notes

References

Additional information

* Bement, Leland C
''Bison hunting at Cooper site: where lightning bolts drew thundering herds.''
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999: 37, 43, 176. .
Bement, Leland C. "Folsom Bison Hunting on the Southern Plains." Arrowheads.com
Accessed November 14, 2016.

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20161115133249/http://nr_shpo.okstate.edu/shpopic.asp?id=02000171 "National Register Properties in Oklahoma: Cooper Bison Kill Site (34HP45)".Image of arrowheads found at the site. Accessed November 14, 2016. {{Prehistoric technology Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma Buffalo jumps Geography of Harper County, Oklahoma National Register of Historic Places in Harper County, Oklahoma