| | HUNTING AND GATHERING
Other Hunting Tools and Strategies
The Atlatl Increases Hunting Efficiency In order to penetrate the thick hides of bison, the hunter often attached a large projectile point to his spear and put it in an atlatl. An atlatl was a long stick made of wood, bone or antler. The atlatl increased the length of a hunter’s arm, in effect. allowing the hunter to throw spears at large mammals with great strength and accuracy. Net Hunting: A Community Event While spear hunting was often a male-dominated activity, women and children were often involved in another prehistoric form of hunting called “net hunting.” This simple technique was a successful way to trap animals. Men frightened the disoriented animals into large nets, while the women and children would guard the outskirts to prevent the mammal’s escape.
Bison Jumps: Driven to Death
 Waving blankets and burning torches, prehistoric hunters stampede a herd of buffalo over a cliff. Illustration: Charles Shaw.
Net hunting was a successful way to trap smaller animals, but bison jumps were important to catch larger creatures such as bison. Early Americans often depended on skill and luck to drive large, stampeding mammals off cliffs to their deaths. A local example of a prehistoric bison jump near Wilson Butte Cave is the Wasden Site, where a layer of mammoth and bison remains were discovered. Next Page: Ice Caves as food storage All images on this page are courtesy of this site. | | Using a motion much like a tennis serve,
the hunter swings an atlatl, or spear-thrower,
overhead. Illustration Ken Brown 86.
Women dried and smoked meat—
particularly after a large hunt. It
was an effective way to cure and
preserve the fresh-killed game.
Illustration: Nola Davis. Contributions by Women Although women didn’t participate in hunting activities that required extreme strength, they could lay traps, sight game, and help with animal drives. However, because the image of brave, male prehistoric hunters, using spears against mammoths and other ice age mammals, is so popular in modern culture, the role of women in prehistoric life is often overlooked. However, archaeologists now believe that women played important roles in the daily lives of the earliest Americans. In typical hunting-gathering communities, women were important for their skills in gathering plants for medicinal and food purposes, weaving clothes and baskets, tending the home, raising children, and as spiritual guides and symbols. |
