Montana Lifestyle in Ancient Times

1
Montana Lifestyle in Ancient Times
2
Food Sources Now and Then

• Where do you get your food?
• From the store?
• From your garden?
• From hunting or fishing?
• Is some of your food made from scratch like
  homemade bread? If so, where does the flour to
  make the bread come from?
• There were no stores in prehistoric times.
• People hunted or trapped game.
• People hooked or speared fish.
• People harvested plants for their fruits, nuts,
  seeds, and roots.

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HUNTING 12,000 years ago 9,000 years ago 2,000 years ago
Climate The Ice Age was ending glaciers starting to melt. Huge mammals were becoming extinct due to warming. Similar to todays climate
Main Weapon Hand-held spears Atlatl Bow arrow
Hunters Worked together to trap prey in muck and mire in gullies Stampeded and corralled prey. Fished the streams and went eastward for bison hunts
The Hunted Ice Age bison, mastodons, huge woolly mammoths Bison, deer, elk Bison, deer, elk, antelope, birds, moose, rabbits, beaver, etc.
Conditions Hunting very dangerous. Increased distance from prey possible due to atlatl. Smaller projectile points improved safety and accuracy.
4
The Bison

• Ancient people fished the many streams, but there
  were few, or no, bison west of the Continental
  Divide.
• Annual trips eastward for bison hunts.
• Grasses growing on plains contained protein that
  enabled animals to build up mass.
• Extra weight helped animals survive cold winter
  months.
• For over 11,000 years, large game was the main
  source of subsistence (the way by which a culture
  obtains its food) for many prehistoric people of
  Montana.

5
Hunting the Bison

• Young hunters served long apprenticeships with
  their elders.
• Before 1700, hunters did not have horses.
• Used drive lines to funnel animals into areas
  where hunters waited to ambush them.
• Used drive lanes two converging lines which led
  bison to buffalo jumps (pishkuns).
• Built sophisticated wooden corrals which could
  hold as many as twenty bison.
• Used natural traps, such as ravines or sand
  dunes, to capture their prey.

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Paleoindian Clovis Culture

• First appeared in North America about 13,000
  years ago.
• Named for a small number of artifacts found in
  1936 and 1937 near Clovis, New Mexico.
• Stone points
• Two long bone points with impact damage
• Stone blades
• Several cutting tools made on stone blades
• Clovis sites have been identified throughout much
  of the contiguous United States, including in
  Montana.
• Distinctive hallmark of the Clovis Culture is the
  Clovis point
• fluted spear point
• Made of rock
• Bifacial (fluted on both sides)

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The Anzick Clovis Site

• A cache (hidden storage space) of Clovis
  artifacts was found in 1968 in Park County,
  Montana.
• Found on the Anzicks property
• Contained artifacts and a childs skeleton.
• Believed to be a burial site
• Dates from 1,200 to 1,400 years ago.
• The oldest recognized culture in North America
  is Clovis and caches from this early period are
  rare. Only seven examples from the western states
  have been scientifically described. The Anzick
  cache from Montana is the largest with 100
  pieces. http//lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pa
  ges/2003novemberdrakecachepage2.htm optional web
  link to return to this side click on the back
  button at the web site.

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The Anzick Clovis Site - Montana

• Only one partial Clovis skeleton has ever been
  unearthedthis child who was buried in the bluff
  near the Shields Riverand the secrets locked
  within those bones could provide answers that
  have eluded archaeologists since the first Clovis
  artifacts were discovered in the Southwest 70
  years ago.
• http//outside.away.com/outside/magazine/200002/20
  0002bones2.html
• optional web link to return to this slide,
  click on the web site back button

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Other Important Clovis Finds in Montana

• Another Clovis site in Montana is the McHaffie
  site, discovered near Clancy.
• During the construction of the post office in
  Gardiner, Montana, in the 1950s, an obsidian
  projectile point of Clovis origin was found that
  dated from approximately 11,000 years ago.
  (Wikipedia - optional.)

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Earliest Tools

• Early Montana stone tools - about twelve
  thousand years old.
• Quarry - a specific place where people obtained
  tool stone.
• Prehistoric people often traveled great distances
  to collect particular kinds of tool stone.
• Obsidian is one type of lithic material (stone)
  collected. It is a volcanic glass which is
  frequently black, but may be other colors.

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Obsidian Cliff

• in Yellowstone National Park
• a quarry that ancient people used heavily.
• a National Historic Landmark.
• A source of lithic materials.
• A site used by indigenous people in prehistory
  for thousands of years
• Arrowheads from Yellowstone obsidian have been
  found as far away as Ohio.

Courtesy of National Park Service
12
Stone Tools Lithic Tools

• Pebble tools -
• made by very primitive humans.
• broken rocks with edges.
• Early humans used pebble tools for crushing
  animal bones.
• Hand-axes -
• used in hunting, food preparation, and many other
  tasks.
• One end of the hand-axe was shaped into a point.
• Blade and core tools -
• created from prepared pieces of lithic raw
  material.

13
Projectile Point Patterns

• Arrowheads that have been found have shown large
  variety.

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Stone tools used in early Montana

• atlatl used to throw long narrow darts tipped
  with projectile points.
• butchering knives used to cut up animals.
• scrapers stone to clean animal hides.
• stone drills used to make holes in wood, bone,
  and animal hide.

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Atlatl
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How to Use an Atlatl
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History of atlatl

• Word atlatl is of Aztec origin
• Used in Montana for 12,000 years
• Existed throughout the world for over 30,000
  years.
• Could kill large wooly mammoths in North America
  and leather-clad Spaniards in South America.
• An atlatl-thrown dart could travel over 100 miles
  per hour.

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You be the chiseler!

• Imagine what it would have been like to make your
  own stone weapons and tools.
• Write down what the objects might have been used
  for.

19
Test your Skill

• To see if you can correctly identify the uses for
  ancient stone tools, go to the PBS NOVA link
  below, an interactive mind challenge.
• Once youve explored the activity, click on the
  web site back button to return to this slide.

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Non-Stone Tools

• awls
• Used to shred fibers for thread and fishing nets.
• used to pierce holes in animals hides.
• bone needles
• size of toothpicks,
• tiny hole in one end like modern sewing needles.
• sinew
• animal tendons used as thread
• twine
• plant material used as thread
• parfleche hide container made by sewing
  together pieces of animal hide, especially from
  bison

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Other Non-Stone Tools

• Ancient people used antler and horn, along with
  bone.
• Used for digging sticks
• Used for flintknapping
• Hafted a point to a bone handle with cordage.
• Used wood and bison horn for ladles, spoons,
  bowls, and cooking tongs.

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Tools for Food Preparation

• Pottery
• relatively recent technology
• used for food storage and for cooking
• made by coiling strings of clay together or hand
  shaping a pot from a lump of clay
• heated or fired to improve their durability
• Carved steatite (soapstone) vessels
• Made from soapstone (talc) found in southwest
  Montana
• Baskets
• Made from coiled or woven pieces of plant
  materials.
• used as bowls and for seed parching (drying)
  trays
• Cedar bark
• used to make containers used for storing food and
  other items.

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People and Plants
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Plants Used by Early Montanans

• Prehistoric Montanans did not plant gardens or
  raise animals for food.
• They depended on plant foods they gathered and
  animals they hunted in the wild.
• They were nomadic, moving as the seasons changed
  to hunt and gather wild food in different places.
  
• Lived along the warmer river bottoms during cold
  weather.
• Traveled to the foothills and mountains during
  warm weather to hunt animals and gather roots,
  bulbs, and berries.

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The Importance of Plants

• In Montanas rigorous climate, people needed many
  calories (food energy) to survive.
• In late winter and early spring, prehistoric
  groups often went hungry as food supplies got
  low.
• Did not have the technology to store large
  quantities of food.
• Kinds of plants, and availability, varied from
  eastern to western Montana, from lowlands to high
  mountains, and from spring through summer to
  fall.

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How Were Plants Used in Ancient Times?

• Used as food
• Used for medicine to cure ills and heal wounds.
• Used as a poultice, a moist covering for burns,
  cuts, and bruises.
• Used for cordage, a braided form of ancient
  string.
• Made from fibers of sagebrush, cedar, yucca and
  other plants.

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Prehistoric Plant Use

• Over 300 species of plants used by prehistoric
  people of Montana (estimate).
• Purple coneflower rattlesnake bites
• Wild rose tea cure stomach problems
• Yarrow disinfect wounds
• Huckleberry arthritis
• A 9,000 year-old net made of juniper bark cordage
  was found in Mummy Cave near the Montana/Wyoming
  border.
• The net was used to trap animals.

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Roots A Primary Plant Food

• Important root crops provided minerals, vitamins,
  carbohydrates, and protein.
• Camas root harvested after it flowered
• Bitterroot harvested before it flowered
• Biscuit root
• Indian breadroot
• Digging stick was made of wood and/or antler.
• Once a root was dug, it could be processed, or
  prepared.
• Dried in the sun and saved for winter meals
• Boiled or steamed
• Roasted in pits dug in the ground
• Eaten plain, mixed with berries, or added to stews

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Roots provided variety of foods

• Camas root
• Stored whole, squeezed into little cakes, or
  mashed and formed into round loaves.
• Main sweetener used before sugar was introduced.
• Roots dried and then ground with mano and metate
  to create flour.
• Mano and metate were used to mash and grind the
  root back and forth until the root was finely
  ground.
• Prehistoric mano and metate stones show the wear
  of many years of use.
• www.nps.org

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Berries and Fruits

• Berries were an important staple, especially
  during the fall.
• Serviceberry
• Huckleberry
• Chokecherry
• Gooseberry
• Currant
• Buffaloberry
• Berries harvested after the first frost are
  considered the sweetest.
• Eaten fresh
• Dried in the sun on hides
• Ground with a mano and metate
• Mixed with fat and meat and then formed into
  loaves and dried (pemmican).

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Ancient Ways of Cooking Food

• Ancient people used excavated pits and hide
  containers to cook their food
• They heated the stones
• Placed the hide containers directly on the stones
• Covered with earth or mulch, allowing meat to
  cook for several hours or even days.
• 2. They also cooked meat directly on large flat
  rocks heated in fire pits.
• 3. They sometimes roasted meat on a spit over an
  open fire or fire hearth.

32
Cooking Food

• Drying Racks
• Willow frames with hundreds of pieces of meat
  hanging on them
• This sun drying preserved food for the long
  winter months

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Cooking Objects and Their Uses

• Hide Containers
• Made from animal skins
• Never placed directly over a fire (would burn)
• Hot stones added to water inside container
• Foods added to boiling water (stone boiling).
• Used for roots, bulbs, plants, and meat

34
Ancient Shelters

• Ancient lifestyle required housing that was easy
  to transport and assemble.
• Some shelters were not mobile.
• Caves and Rock Shelters
• Wickiups
• Pithouses
• Cribbed log structures
• Most popular was the tipi.

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Tipi

• Is conical in shape.
• Long, narrow fir poles were placed upright and
  leaning together for support.
• Animal hides buffalo sewn together formed the
  outer covering.
• Rocks placed around the bottom of tipi to the
  hide cover down.
• Exteriors of tipis were sometimes painted with
  symbols and designs.

36
Preserving Ancient Shelters

• Prehistoric shelters are fragile and rare.
• Caves, rockshelters, pithouses, wickiups, and
  tipi rings have been disturbed by treasure
  hunters, who seldom find anything. This destroys
  irreplaceable information.
• Report any archaeological find you discover to
• USFS (United States Forest Service)
• BLM (Bureau of Land Management)
• SHPO (State Historic Preservation Officer)

37
Preserved Art

• Ancient people used technology to create art to
  express themselves.
• Based on scientific dating, the oldest rock art
  in Montana is 2,000 years old.
• Rock art in Montana includes many different kinds
  of designs.
• Animals
• People
• Abstract designs
• Handprints

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Pictographs Painted Images

• Drawn with liquid paints or solid crayons
• Raw pigment is ground to a powder
• Pigment obtained from
• Charcoal
• Local hematite
• Red clay earth
• Powder is mixed with animal fat until sticky
• Painted with animal hair brushes or with fingers
  and hands.

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Pictograph Image

• Handprints common in Montana rock art.
• Sometimes drawn.
• Sometimes hands dipped in red ochre paint, like
  these.

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Petroglyphs Carved Images

• Lines of petroglyph were carved with pointed
  stone tools or antler tines.
• Sometimes evidence of use of hammerstone seen.
• Most petroglyphs were on sandstone, which is
  softer and smoother than other kinds of rocks.
• Many rock art sites are sacred to modern Indians.
  
• Sites can be viewed, but shouldnt be touched
  because they are fragile.

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Dating Petroglyphs

• Some rock art can be dated by the type of images
  portrayed. This depiction of a person was made
  some after A.D. 1700, when the horse and the gun
  were first acquired by Montanas native people.

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Optional Extension Activity Click on Link
desired from choices below

• Cooking Making Pemmican
• Art Rock Art
• Traditions - Storytelling
• Plants Native Plant Research and Writing
• Artifacts - Quicktime Movie
• Flintknapping

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Extension Activity Rock Art
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Rock Art contd
Back to Choices
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Flintknapping - Quicktime Movie

• View a Quicktime movie on flintknapping performed
  at the Huntsville Archaeological Fair in 2006.
• http//tides.sfasu.edu/Teachers/Tides/docs/Virtual
  Expeditions/videos/htpp.html
• Right-click and save-as to download.
• (This take at least ten minutes to download and
  another ten to view. Have an additional activity
  ready to perform while youre waiting for the
  Quicktime movie to download.)
• After downloading is finished, click play button
  to view.

Back to Choices
46
Extensions - Storytelling

• Stars in prehistoric times
• people used the stars for navigating.
• There were no bright lights to interfere with the
  starlight entering the atmosphere.
• Stories were told about how some of the stars
  came to be.
• Imagine you are a Paleolithic Montanan viewing a
  sky filled with stars.
• Just like the ancients did, you can see patterns
  in the stars the patterns are called
  constellations.
• Write a story about a mythical creature or a
  special human(s) that you can pick out from a
  star arrangement with your unaided eye.
• Visit the web site on the next slide to get
  started.

47
Extensions Creative Storytelling

• Open your web browser.
• In the address box, type the URL
  www.sky-map.org.
• At the site, use the zoom slider bar to make the
  image zoom out (to one notch away from the top of
  the zoom slider bar).
• Click on the circled icon to display the
  constellations.
• Follow directions on the next slide.

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Creative Storytelling contd

• Click on the circled icon to view the night sky
  above your location.
• Enter your location in the search box when the
  dialog box appears.
• When the dialog box returns your latitude and
  longitude, click on Go to see a view of the
  night sky above Butte.
• Make sure your zoom slider bar is not all the way
  to the top or the star patterns are difficult to
  see.
• Engage your imagination as you view the night sky.

Back to Choices
Pick out a pattern in the stars that you like and
write an imaginary story about it. Be creative.
Be original. Be descriptive. Use good writing
style.
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Extension Activity - Cooking

• We will make pemmican the indigenous way
  following the recipe provided by The Montana
  Historical Society on the next slide.
• For fun, you can visit a web site to see a
  healthy energy bar that resembles pemmican.
  Contemporary Lakotas run this company. (Click on
  web sites Back button to return here.)

Back to Choices
50
Back to Choices
51
Extension Activity for Plants

• Choose a native Montana plant from either of the
  two lists youll find at the links below.
  Research the plant using at least two sources to
  make the research your own.
• List of Native Plants (ones with language
  translation)
• More Native Plants (ones without language
  translation)
• An excellent resource for researching Montanas
  plants can be found at this site.

More
Back to Choices
52
Extension Activity Plants (contd)

• EITHER
• You will write, edit, rewrite, and illustrate
  your chosen plant, which we will bind into a
  class book. Answer the 11 questions on the
  following slide as you research.
• From http//www.nps.gov/glac/forteachers/4-6-unit-
  three-activity-2-native-harves.htm

OR You will complete a Writing Portfolio
assignment as outlined in Butte School District
1 Writing Curriculum.
Back to Choices
53
Plant Research Questions

• 1. List the common and scientific names and your
  local tribes name (if available) for the plant
  you have chosen to research. Give a physical
  description of the plant.
• 2. How is this plant used by native peoples? What
  parts were used and how were they prepared for
  use?
• 3. Were there any special ceremonies or rituals
  observed when gathering, preparing and using this
  plant?
• 4. Are there any special legends or traditional
  stories involved with the use of this plant?
• 5. How does the plant reproduce? How does it
  spread into new territory?
• 6. In what sort of environment would you look for
  this plant? Does it have special requirements for
  soil, moisture, elevation, shelter, etc.?
• 7. Is this plant usually found in association
  with other plants?
• 8. Does your plant have any special relationships
  with other plants or animals?
• 9. What special contributions does your plant
  make to its habitat?
• 10. Are there any plants or animals that make
  life difficult for your plant? Is it a rare or
  threatened species?
• 11. What other interesting information
  can you supply about your plant?

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54
List of Native Plants

• Serviceberry
• Tree lichen
• Blue camas
• Biscuitroot
• Chokecherry
• Bitterroot
• Lodgepole pine
• Huckleberry
• Yampa
• Western red cedar

Back to Choices
55
More Montanas Native Plants

• Other plants native to Montana that you may also
  research are
• Balsamroot
• Glacier lily
• Yellow bells
• Alumroot
• Kinnikinnick
• Horsetail
• Wild rose
• Buffalo berry
• Willow
• Purple coneflower
• Oregon grape

Back to Questions
56
Montanas Native Plants

• Serviceberry (sarvisberry, Saskatoonberry)
• Amelanchier alnifolia (Genus species)
• Blackfeet ok-kun-okinKootenai squmuSalish s
  saq Black

Back to List
Back to Questions
57
Montanas Native Plants

• Tree lichen
• Alectoria fremontii (Genus species)
• Blackfeet e-simatch-sis
• Kootenai a a
• Salish sawtamqan

Back to List
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58
Montanas Native Plants

• Blue Camas
• Camassia quamash (Genus species)
• Blackfeet miss-issiaKootenai xapiSalish
  ltxwe?

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59
Montanas Native Plants

• Biscuit-root (coos-root)
• Lomatium cous (Genus species)
• Blackfeet koosKootenai NaptnuqukuSalish pcLu

Back to List
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60
Montanas Native Plants

• Chokecherry
• Prunus virginiana (Genus species)
• Blackfeet pukkeepKootenai A ki'lmakSalish
  txwLo

Back to List
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61
Montanas Native Plants

• Bitterroot
• Lewisia rediviva (Genus species)
• Blackfeet eks-ix-ixKootenai NaqamuSalish
  spegt am

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62
Montanas Native Plants

• Lodgepole pine
• Pinus contorta (Genus species)
• Blackfeet manistamiKootenai I ti t'Salish
  qwqwLi?t

Back to List
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63
Montanas Native Plants

• Huckleberry
• Vaccinium globulare (Genus species)
• Blackfeet apa-oapspiKootenai awiyaSalish
  stsa

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64
Montanas Native Plants

• Yampa (wild carrot)
• Perideridia gairdneri (Genus species)
• Blackfeet nitzi-katasiKootenai Ni'naSalish
  sgtukwam

Back to List
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65
Montanas Native Plants

• Western red cedar
• Thuja plicata (Genus species)
• Blackfeet sixinikokKootenai I'nat'Salish
  astqw

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