Bison Hunting at Cooper Site: Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds

Almost seventy years ago the first Folsom projectile point found in association with ancient bison bones in northern New Mexico demonstrated that Paleoindian people were in the New World as long ago as the end of the last ice age. The Cooper site, discovered in 1992 in northwestern Oklahoma, is among the largest Folsom-age kill sites in the southern plains. Including extraordinarily well-preserved bison bones and thirty-three projectile points, the site has yielded major contributions to what is known of this early people. Leland C. Bement outlines the history of the Cooper site, its discovery and excavation. Here also is the first evidence of Folsom hunting ritual, in the form of a startling red zigzag painted on one of the skulls. The painted skull - the oldest design-painted object in North America - greatly enlarges the significance of the Cooper site, offering evidence of early ritual rarely seen in the tangible physical record.