The Grapevine Creek Buffalo Jump Complex: interdisciplinary research on the Crow Reservation, Montana

Abstract

This work explores the Grapevine Creek Buffalo Jump Complex, a Late Prehistoric cultural landscape on the southern border of the Crow Reservation in south-central Montana, USA. The Grapevine Creek drainage is located at a geographic crossroads, being at a major river crossing as well as being the gateway between the Bighorn Basin and the Missouri Plateau. Prehistoric hunters took advantage of this fact to successfully capitalize on game movement through the drainage. Just as game were drawn to the area, so were different groups of people, as evidenced in the archaeological and ethnohistoric records. This concept of intersectionality is explored in my dissertation by drawing on the subdisciplines of ethnohistory, Indigenous archaeology, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology. Grapevine Creek plays a prominent role in the oral traditions and oral histories of the Crow Tribe and as such is a physical place where two forms of truth meet: oral traditions and histories and the archaeological record. Utilizing both, function may be ascribed to the large variety of archaeological features identified at Grapevine Creek. Fieldwork for the project spanned three seasons and was performed by a collaborative crew from several institutions, including Indiana University, University of Arizona, Little Big Horn College, and the Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Standard field methods including pedestrian survey, GPS data collection, and a large subsurface testing regime were used to collect data in the field. The Grapevine Creek buffalo jumping complex is an important addition to our understanding of Prehistoric settlement and subsistence patterns on the high plains. Through the practice of community-based participatory research I explore the challenges and benefits of living and working with an Indigenous community while conducting original research on the cultural history of the region