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| Figure 1 - 2.1-inch-long Besant atlatl dart point or knife form found by the author in Goshen County, Wyoming, in the summer of 1972. The raw material is a cream- colored jasper, most likely sourced from the Hartville Uplift. One might call this point a Pelican Lake or Besant 'tweener'. More on 'tweeners' later. |
Fast
Track
There was not a cloud in the powder-blue sky. At ground level, it was a different story. Blowing sand and snow pelted the landscape. In the distance, a man walked toward the morning sun along a wind-swept ridge. His back was to an intense, gale-force wind out of the northwest. Ten paces or so behind him, another man followed, and behind that man by a few paces was a third man. Below the ridge and running parallel to the men was a small river meandering across a wide floodplain. At that time of year, the river was small, but when the snowmelt arrived in the spring, the river would carry muddy water from one side of the floodplain to the other. A millennium and a half later, white settlers would name that river the Powder. Behind the men, snow-capped mountains in the distance reached for heaven. A millennium or so later, those blue mountains would be called the Bighorns.
Up on the ridge, the furious wind flung dirt and snow high into the air, creating ground blizzards and whiteouts. The men were hunting for bison, but they would settle for deer, elk, pronghorn, or practically anything that moved. The hunters were not starving; their tribe stockpiled enough food to last through much of the winter. But as winter plodded along, the hunters became restless just lying around their dwellings. You can only make so many projectile points and atlatl dart shafts before you become frightfully bored. The hunters craved physical activity to stave off the tedium. They just picked the wrong day.
The bitter cold found it difficult to penetrate the hunters’ garb. Over their inner clothes, the hunters wore buffalo robes fashioned into ankle-length coats. Elk hide was used to make their leggings. Sock-like boots with fur against the skin covered their moccasin-laden feet. Fur-lined caps rested on the hunters’ noggins. The leader’s long gray hair blew across his face as the wind pushed him across the ridge. His cap was made from the facial skin and fur of a badger. Empty animal eye sockets aimed forward and moved in unison with the leader's turning of the head.
The leader’s complexion was weathered and dark, and his face long and drawn. Deep wrinkles lined around his mouth and eyes. The leader’s nose was large and hooked, and a long pinkish-red scar ran diagonally across his right cheek. He squinted against the bright winter sun and the harsh wind. The rims of his eyes were red from an ice and sand assault. He was considered old, surviving that harsh environment for over forty winters. He was a survivor who had so far met any challenge nature threw at him.
Several winters prior, the leader and his people left their village near a big river to the northeast. White settlers would someday call that big river the Missouri. The leader's tribe, which an archaeologist would name Besant, traveled southwest, following smaller river tributaries, sometimes by boat, while most of the time on foot. His people still traded with the kinfolk who remained camped along the big river. In fact, the brown semitranslucent rock used to make most of their projectile points came from trading with the people to the northeast.
The leader stopped at the edge of the ridge and braced himself against the gusty wind. He liked living along that small river; there was enough food to feed the village, and the water from the river was mostly good. Out of the corner of his eye, the leader spotted a broken atlatl shaft lying on the ground. At its tip was a corner-notched projectile point with two sharp barbs near its base. It belonged to a different people who spoke a strange tongue. Those people once camped along the river, but the leader and his people took the land away from them and pushed those strangers west into the mountains. Archaeologists would call those displaced people Pelican Lake.
The leader’s attention was on the river valley below. The ridge partially shielded the river valley from the wind. If there were any prey animals to find on that blustery day, they would be hunkered down in the valley below. The old man threaded his way down the steep slope of the ridge through a field of granite boulders. The other two men followed behind. The hunters’ spear throwers were ready, with spearshafts resting on their shoulders just in case they spooked out a beast or two from amongst the rocks. They would need to act quickly if they expected to make a kill.
They arrived at a place in the river valley where massive granite boulders formed a natural amphitheater. Between the granite boulders, the tribe had constructed a fence using cottonwood tree posts and rails. They then draped old bison hides over the rails. The corral's opening was to the north. Painted bison skulls adorned the tops of several fence posts. The leader stopped and peered into the corral. Bison bones littered the ground, many with patches of fur and stained blood still on them. The tribe successfully utilized that bison trap twice over the last two autumns.
After briefly reminiscing over past bison hunts, the three hunters turned and walked away. Suddenly, a jackrabbit jumped out from behind a bush and hightailed it across the floodplain. With tail tucked and ears pinned back, the rabbit flat-out skedaddled. The leader launched a dart from his spear thrower high into the air. A second hunter followed suit and flung an atlatl dart into the air. The darts met the nasty crosswind and fluttered off course, crashing into the ground a good distance away from the intended target. The jackrabbit never looked back.
The hunters had a good laugh over that. That was the stringy jackrabbit that got away. With that, they searched for their atlatl darts. Both darts needed repair. The hunters would have the rest of the monotonous winter to repair those darts. The three hunters headed upriver. By the end of the day, the hunters wished they had not missed the only game animal they spotted on that miserable day.
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| Figure 2 - The North Butte of Pumpkin Buttes near where my story took place. Photo Courtesy of Wyoming Catholic Cowboys. |
Besant – People of the North
A mile or so away from where my story took place lies a well-documented prehistoric bison kill known as the Ruby Site, located near Pumpkin Buttes south of Gillette, Wyoming (Figure 2). Frison (1991: 200-208) reported that the site was a sophisticated bison trap or pound with a primitive corral, drive lane, and ceremonial structure. The construction of the bison trap took advantage of the surrounding topography, and according to Frison, designing and building the various components of the trap took an elevated level of knowledge and resourcefulness from the Besant people who built it.
Frison (2004: 100) reported the unpredictable and dangerous nature of bison. He reminded us that bison, unlike cattle, were undomesticated beasts and could quickly turn from placid to aggressive on a moment’s notice. By observing modern-day bison behavior, Frison noted that animals along a fenceline will push back against the animals crowding them. He stated that even a half-full corral of bison could break off fence posts, even in a well-constructed corral. The investigators found evidence at the Ruby site that the Besant people rebuilt the corral fence at least once on the downslope side. Herding the massive beasts on foot added more personal risk for the prehistoric hunters at Ruby.
Patricia Lee (N.D.: 13) wrote about her bison ranching experience, “Bison are born with the instinct to charge…Open space is always the direction they will choose. Do not get between them and open space. When they feel trapped, they will try to find a way out…Their head is a fighting instrument. Any movement at the head and it is like pointing a gun in a duel. They will take up the challenge…Bison can “sense” or “smell” fear.”
Now, imagine what it was like for prehistoric hunters to round up and corral wild-eyed bison on foot with nothing to protect themselves except a primitive fence, atlatl darts, and thrusting spears. When the Besant people built the drive lane for funneling the bison into the corral at the Ruby Site, they took advantage of the surrounding topography by bending the drive lane so that the corral remained hidden from the bison for as long as possible. The hunters understood how the bison would react upon sensing or seeing the closed space of the corral. The Besant people understood bison behavior.
At the Ruby Site, investigators found projectile points along the drive lane where the corral became visible to the herd. To keep the herd moving, the Besant hunters launched atlatl dart points at the rearmost animals. The harassment by the hunters at the rear of the herd shoved the beasts at the front of the herd into the waiting pen. A few of the projectile points found along the drive lane at Ruby were large enough for use as thrusting spears, perhaps meaning that the prehistoric hunters were close enough to jab the rearmost beasts with long spears.
The typology of the projectile points found at Ruby was an odd assortment, ranging from classically made Besant points to barbed corner-notched Pelican Lake points to even a point that looked like a Middle Archaic Oxbow (Frison 1971: 82). Did the Besant people salvage those other projectile point types and reuse them, or was the bison pound used by two separate cultures: Pelican Lake and Besant, or was there a cultural connection or communal hunting operation going on between the Besant and Pelican Lake people? The answers to those questions remain unanswered.
At Ruby, investigators discovered an alleged ceremonial structure, or spirit lodge, twenty feet east of the pound and six feet away from the drive lane (Frison 1971: 85). The structure was ovoid in shape, thirty-nine feet long by fifteen feet wide, with a lengthwise orientation close to true north. Bison skulls and vertebrae were strategically buried or placed on the surface of the ground on the south end of the structure. There was no evidence of fire or workshop areas, which most likely ruled out its use as a habitation structure. The only human-made artifact found in the spirit lodge was a single end scraper.
Schlesier (1987: 144-149) credited shamanism as the reason for the construction of the spirit lodge at Ruby. Schlesier speculated that Eastern Besant people held both “game calling” and “sending off’ ceremonies at that spirit lodge. He claimed that the Eastern Besant people who built and used the bison pound were the ancestors of the Cheyenne Indians, a tribe well known from the Indian Wars of the 1800s. Schlesier speculated as to what might have happened at that spirit lodge after a successful bison hunt: “After the herd had been brought in, killed and butchered, and a portion of the meat taken to the camp on the stripped hides, the sending-off ceremonies would formally be held in the spirit lodge.”
Around one hundred miles south of the Ruby site, investigators found another Besant bison kill site called Muddy Creek (Frison 1991: 208). Just like the Ruby site, there was a bison pound that took advantage of the surrounding rolling hills. The corral was built in a natural depression, which shielded the trap from the herd's view until the very last moment. The Besant people constructed the corral on sloping ground in an area where lodgepole and limber pine were available. The investigators speculated that a drive lane fence once existed, but they found no remains of it. Figure 3 shows examples of Besant projectile points found at Ruby and Muddy Creek (Frison 1991: 106).
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| Figure 3 - Besant points from the Ruby and Muddy Creek bison kill sites (Frison 1991: 106). |
The Besant projectile point was first documented and named by Wettlaufer (1955: 39) at the Mortlach Site in the Besant Valley of south-central Saskatchewan. Wettlaufer (1960: 108) later confirmed Besant at the Long Creek Site, also in Saskatchewan. Figure 4 shows sketches of the Besant projectile points found at the Mortlach and Long Creek Sites (Dyck 1983: 116). Note that the projectile point labeled "b" strongly resembled a Pelican Lake point with corner-notching and barbs.
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| Figure 4 - Besant points (and a Pelican Lake point?) Dyck 1983: 116 |
At the Walter Felt Site in Saskatchewan, Kehoe (1974) defined several varieties of Samantha projectile points stratigraphically above the Besant stratigraphic layer. He stated that while the Samantha projectile point type was part of the Besant Phase, Samantha projectile points were the bow-and-arrow version of the larger Besant atlatl points. Kehoe suggested that Besant atlatl points existed in the earlier part of the phase from about the time of Christ to around A.D. 400, and then transitioned to Samantha arrow points once the bow-and-arrow was introduced to the northwestern plains. Then, around A.D. 700, Kehoe declared that Samantha arrow points transitioned to Prairie Side-Notched arrow points.
Greiser (1994: 37) noted that Besant sites existed along most of the major drainages on the northwestern plains, including the Missouri and Milk Rivers in northern Montana and the headwaters in Saskatchewan. She stated that Besant sites were not common along the upper Yellowstone River in western Montana but occurred more frequently in eastern Montana and Wyoming along the Middle Missouri, Bell Fourche, and Powder Rivers. Surface finds of Besant projectile points have also shown up in collections around the Black Hills of South Dakota. Vickers (1994: 13) added that the western extent of Besant generally coincided with the Rocky Mountain Front Range, with a few Besant projectile points found associated with Pelican Lake points in the mountains.
Peck (2011: 282) added that investigators have also found Besant sites in southern Alberta, southwestern Manitoba, and southern Saskatchewan. He noted that a few investigators suggested that much of the Besant material in the Dakotas and Manitoba might be from a different culture that archaeologists call the Sonata Complex. I will not discuss the Sonata Complex for this article.
Author’s note: I have personally found what I cataloged as classically made Besant and Samantha projectile points while surface hunting for artifacts in north, central, and southeast Wyoming, the panhandle of Nebraska, and northeast Colorado, including along the Rocky Mountain Front Range. I have noted that when I find Besant projectile points, I also find Pelican Lake projectile points. Since I discovered those projectile points outside the original archaeological context, I do not know whether there was any relationship between the peoples who made the Pelican Lake and Besant points. What I do know is that Pelican Lake and Besant oftentimes frequented the same sites. Figure 5 is a photograph of projectile point bases that I surface recovered from the area mentioned above.
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| Figure 5 - Besant projectile point bases surface found by the author in Colorado and Wyoming. The raw material comes from geographically wide sources, from the Alibates rock quarries in Texas to the Flattop Butte rock quarries in Colorado, and further north to the Hartville Uplift and Spanish Diggings rock quarries in east central Wyoming. |
Reeves (1983: 141) proposed two theories for the origin of the Besant Phase and outlined the pros and cons of each theory. The first theory was that Besant was a sequent phase within his Tunaxa Cultural Tradition and that Besant evolved from the older Pelican Lake Phase or one of the Pelican Lake regional subphases. Reeves’ second theory was that the Besant Phase was unrelated to his Tunaxa Cultural Tradition and either originated from a separate Indigenous plains tradition or from an intrusive cultural tradition coming from another region. Reeves favored intrusive cultural tradition for Besant. He noted that Besant sites along the eastern fringe of the northern plains shared similarities with Woodland cultures in the Midwest of North America. Those similarities included Woodland-like pottery, burial mounds and practices, and examples of permanent habitation structures. Reeves contended that the Besant Phase was part of a cultural tradition that he called Napikwan, and it originated somewhere east and north of the northern plains.
In disputing a cultural relationship between Besant and Pelican Lake, Reeves (1983: 96) suggested that the Besant and Pelican Lake Phases utilized different lithic sources. He stated that while the Besant Phase favored Knife River Flint out of North Dakota, the Pelican Lake Phase preferred obsidian from the Yellowstone Park area. As an example of Besant's bias toward Knife River Flint, Reeves pointed out that at the Richards and Muhlbach Besant Sites in Canada, the artifacts were mostly made from Knife River Flint, in fact, 96 percent and 84 percent, respectively. Both sites were far away from the Knife River quarries in North Dakota, which further highlighted the Besant people's inclination to transport and use that rock type.
Author’s Note: Reeves must have been referring to his experience with Canadian sites for the assertion that Besant and Pelican Lake used different lithic sources. I have recovered Besant and Pelican Lake projectile points made from Knife River Flint in both Wyoming and Colorado. Pelican Lake people also liked Knife River Flint and either visited the quarries in North Dakota or traded for the material. We know Pelican Lake people frequented the Dakotas because we find their projectile points there, made from a wide variety of materials, including Knife River Flint.
Of the hundreds of Pelican Lake and Besant projectile points I have found in Wyoming and Colorado, I have not noticed any obvious raw material preferences for Pelican Lake or Besant. I have examples of both projectile point types made from every available material possible. Based on my experience, both phases used locally sourced material much of the time.
Not everyone agreed with Reeves and others regarding an Eastern Woodlands origin for Besant. Schlesier (1994: 318-320) advocated for the Mackenzie and Keewatin districts in the Northwest Territories as the origin for Besant. He claimed that there were no antecedents of Besant east in the Woodlands or northeast in the Boreal Forest. Greiser (1994: 36-37) countered that by stating that most researchers believed that Besant originated in the Eastern or Northern Woodlands.
If the Besant Phase originated to the east or north of the northern plains, did the Besant projectile point technology originate there as well? Reeves
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| Figure Six - Sandy Creek projectile points. Dyck (1983: 108). |
Author’s Note: I clearly see the similarity between Sandy Creek projectile points and Besant projectile points. I did not understand Reeves' reasoning behind attempting to connect Oxbow projectile point technology to Besant projectile point technology through Sandy Creek technology. If the Besant Phase originated in the Eastern or Northern Woodlands as Reeves proposed, it would seem more logical to connect Besant and Sandy Creek projectile point technology to the Eastern or Northern Woodlands, perhaps through the Middle Archaic Matanzas or Logan Creek projectile points.
Since Sandy Creek projectile points could easily be mistaken for Besant projectile points, and the Sandy Creek Phase coexisted with the Pelican Lake Phase, it is assumed that Sandy Creek was pre-Besant. The relationship between Pelican Lake and Sandy Creek should be questioned and studied.
What happened to Besant? It is reasonable to assume that the people of the Besant Phase evolved their weaponry and culture throughout time. Kehoe (1974: 104) suggested that Besant atlatl points existed in the earlier part of the phase, around the time of Christ to A.D. 400. When the bow-and-arrow became available, Besant atlatl points shrank in size and became what Kehoe called Samantha arrow points. Then, sometime around A.D. 700, the Samantha arrow points evolved into what we call Prairie Side-Notched arrow points.
Schlesier (1994: 318-320) was an advocate for the Northwest Territories for the origin of the Besant Phase, noting that there were no direct antecedents of Besant in the Eastern Woodlands or to the northeast in the Boreal Forest. Based on linguistic research, Schlesier proclaimed that the Besant Phase had two subphases, one in the east and one in the west. Schlesier proposed that the western subphase of Besant became the Blackfoot Indian Tribe in later years, while the eastern subphase of Besant eventually ended up as the Cheyenne Indian Tribe. Schlesier backed that theory up with the linguistic differences between the Algonquian languages of the Blackfoot and Cheyenne tribes, which suggested different origins and histories for each tribe. As expected, that theory met with resistance, but Schlesier pointed out that no one came up with any data that contradicted his theory.
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| Figure 7 - Northern plains Besant projectile points from the author's collection. Raw materials include Knife River Flint, jasper, and Spanish Diggings (?) quartzite. |
Discussion and Conclusions
Reeves (1983: 76; 135) believed there were two distinct cultural traditions called Tunaxa and Napikwan, represented by the Pelican Lake Phase and the Besant Phase, respectively. According to Reeves, those two cultural traditions competed with each other for land and resources which left an impression to the reader that the relationship between the two phases was more contentious than cooperative. Reeves proposed that the Besant Phase entered the northern plains from either the northeast or east around the time of Christ. At that time, the Pelican Lake Phase was already occupying the northern plains for over a millennium. Reeves then proposed that over the next few centuries, the Besant Phase was powerful enough to displace and drive the Pelican Lake Phase westward into the mountains, and beyond (Reeves 1983: 189).
A good archaeologist or researcher is like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. They collect obscure and incomplete clues from scattered archaeological sites, connect the dots between the sites, and then create a narrative about what happened during that period in the past. Brian Reeves was one of the best. Without all the answers, archaeologists must fill in the blanks and a good story might become a part of the narrative. In my opinion, that is where the story with the Besant Phase stalled and is now waiting for more discovery to fill in the blanks. Even with the large number of archaeological site investigations from Alberta to Wyoming involving the Besant Phase, there remains a number of questions about Besant's cultural relationship to other phases, specifically Pelican Lake and Sandy Creek. What makes it more difficult is that Besant, Pelican Lake, and Sandy Creek's lifestyles were remarkably similar. The only things to differentiate the Besant Phase from the Pelican Lake Phase or the Sandy Creek Phase were age and projectile point typology.
I found it interesting in my study of Besant that the Ruby bison trap projectile point assemblage contained not only classically made Besant atlatl points, but also projectile points that were identical to Pelican Lake (Frison 1971: Figure Four). The assemblage even contained what appeared to be a Middle Archaic Oxbow projectile point. When I saw the projectile point assemblage from Ruby, I could not help but wonder why Frison did not address or at least draw attention to that inconsistency. Did the Besant people salvage Pelican Lake projectile points on the ground and reuse them at Ruby? Was the bison trapping at Ruby a communal operation between the Besant and Pelican Lake people? Did the people who made Pelican Lake projectile points have an ancestral or cultural relationship with the people who made Besant projectile points? We also saw a classic Pelican Lake projectile point show up in a Besant level in the well defined stratigraphy at the Mortlach site. Wettlaufer (1955: 44; 96; Figure 4 above) claimed that the most likely scenario was that a Besant person picked up the Pelican Lake projectile point off the ground and reused it, and that was how that projectile point ended up in the Besant level. Perhaps, that was the same scenario at the Ruby Site, or perhaps there was more to it. The narrative would probably change if Besant projectile points were found in an older Pelican Lake assemblage.
Based on anecdotal evidence from surface hunting fifty-plus surface sites in southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado, Reeves' narrative about Pelican Lake and Besant did not convince me, not that it needed to. Questioning Reeves' narrative about the relationship between Pelican Lake and Besant is not an easy thing to do based on the fact that Reeves' entire career, starting with his Ph.D. dissertation, was researching prehistoric cultural changes on the northern plains. But I have to wonder how anyone could determine the cultural relationship between Pelican Lake and Besant without more information. What evidence excluded Pelican Lake and Besant from having a sequent or direct lineage relationship?
Whenever I find Pelican Lake projectile points on the fifty-plus sites that I mentioned above, I nearly always find Besant projectile points. Of course, that does not prove anything except that the people who made Besant points frequented the same sites as the people who made Pelican Lake points. Or is that a hint of something more between them? I also find projectile point type 'tweeners' on those same sites. What is a 'tweener'? A tweener is a transitional projectile point or an intermediate form between two projectile point types. For example, a tweener could be a Pelican Lake projectile point with Besant features, such as side notching or basal grinding, or a tweener could be a Besant projectile point with Pelican Lake features, such as corner notching and shortened barbs. I have found enough of those Pelican Lake/Besant tweeners to at least imagine a technological step between the two projectile point types. Could that be the result of a relationship between the two phases, a coincidence, or a case of copycatting? While that does not prove any kind of cultural relationship it might indicate a level of cooperation (Figure 8).
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| Figure 8 - A few 'tweeners' from my collection. Besant points with Pelican Lake features. |
The thoughts in the previous paragraph were based on my artifact finds outside of their original archaeological or stratigraphical context. However, picking up two projectile point types at the same sites, time after time, at least proved that allegedly contentious populations visited and camped at the same sites. The Besant and Pelican Lake Phases also had very similar geographical ranges. Did the Besant people merely follow in the footsteps of Pelican Lake, or was it a coincidence, or was there more of a substantive relationship?
There is still much to learn and debate about Pelican Lake and Besant. Currently, Reeves' widely cited and well-researched theories remain the go-to standard for the Pelican Lake and Besant Phases. His theories have so far held their own based on no new information. I will end my article with a positive quote about the Besant Phase from George Frison based on the work done at the Ruby and Muddy Creek bison kill sites.
“Besant represented a cultural peak—particularly regarding bison hunting—
- George C. Frison (1978: 223).
That we can agree with...
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About the Author
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