Jake Bluff: Clovis Bison Hunting on the Southern Plains

Vocabulary flashcards covering key archaeological concepts, stratigraphy, lithic raw materials, fauna, and taphonomic features from the Jake Bluff site study.

Jake Bluff Site (34HP60)

A Paleoindian archaeological site in Northwest Oklahoma featuring a late Clovis-age arroyo bison kill of at least 22 $Bison\ antiquus$ (calibrated mean age of $12,838\,\text{cal BP}$) stratigraphically underlying a Folsom cultural component.

Arroyo Style Bison Trap

A communal hunting technique where bison are driven into a steep-walled, dead-end gully or channel to trap and kill multiple animals simultaneously; demonstrated at Jake Bluff to have been developed during late Clovis times.

Gleyed Bone Halo

A light greenish-gray ($10Y7/1$) sediment zone surrounding bones in primary, undisturbed kill/butchery contexts, formed by anaerobic rumen bacteria reducing $Fe^{+3}$ iron oxides to $Fe^{+2}$ in red soil.

Minimal Animal Unit (%MAU)

A zooarchaeological percentage metric used at Jake Bluff to demonstrate that limb carcass units were selectively transported from the arroyo floor kill site to the west bench for meat stripping and processing.

Alibates Chert

A distinctive raw stone material originating from quarry sources in the Texas Panhandle (~$200\,\text{km}$ southwest of Jake Bluff), comprising three of the four Clovis projectile points and $69.6\%$ of the debitage at the site.

Edwards Plateau Chert

A high-quality central Texas chert type represented at Jake Bluff by the single, heavily reworked Folsom projectile point recovered from post-Clovis gully sediments.

Bison antiquus Metacarpal Sexing

An osteometric method plotting distal width against medial trochlea depth on fused metacarpals to determine animal sex, identifying a herd subset of at least five cows and five bulls at Jake Bluff.

Younger Dryas Chronozone

An abrupt cold interval (~$11,000$ to $9,800\,\text{BP}$) during which local temperatures dropped by $8\,^\circ\text{C}$, leading to an expansion of C4 grasslands that supported growing bison populations after mammoth extirpation.

Unit I (Jake Bluff Stratigraphy)

The lowermost stratigraphic layer in the Jake Bluff paleo-arroyo containing the Clovis-age bison kill deposit, butchering discard piles, and loamy alluvium directly resting on Permian sandstone bedrock.

Unit II (Jake Bluff Stratigraphy)

The stratigraphic layer at Jake Bluff overlying Unit I, containing gully sediments with caliche cobbles, highly fragmented bone, and a Folsom projectile point approximately $1\,\text{m}$ above the Clovis deposit.

Knick Point

A near-vertical bedrock step in an arroyo bed; at Jake Bluff, the paleo-arroyo floor plunged $1.5\,\text{m}$ below the adjacent bedrock benches immediately downstream of the knick point, creating a dead-end trap for bison.

Ursus americanus (Black Bear) Association

Faunal remains (scapula and rib) and matching protein residue found on one Clovis projectile point at Jake Bluff, indicating a black bear was killed and butchered in the arroyo alongside the bison.

Bone Expediency Tool

An opportunistically modified or utilized bone fragment, such as a bison scapula blade or helically fractured tibia shaft at Jake Bluff, exhibiting localized polish and striations from butchery use.

Jake Bluff Seasonality

The determination based on tooth eruption and wear analysis (age cohorts at $n + 0.3\text{--}0.4$ years) and seasonal phytolith assemblages that the bison kill at Jake Bluff occurred during the fall season (September--October).