Bone Bed III Buffalo Jump

About 2800 years ago (800 B.C.) bison returned to the Lower Pecos area in such numbers that Late Archaic hunters succeeded on at least one occasion in driving hundreds of modern bison (Bison bison) off the same cliff above Bonfire Shelter that Paleoindian hunters had used 8,000 years earlier. This jump episode (which actually may have been several closely-spaced events) resulted in a massive bone deposit called Bone Bed 3. The specialist who studied the bones in the mid-1960s argued that Bone Bed 3 represents a single, extraordinary event during which as many as 800 bison, almost all cows and yearling calves, plunged to their deaths. The number of events and exact magnitude is debated and the bones are being restudied, but it is certain that the Late Archaic hunters killed many more bison than they could make use of and left behind a rotting heap of partially butchered bison carcasses. The decaying mass built up heat and gasses until it spontaneously combusted in an intense blaze that reduced most of the bison bones to ash. It was this bonfire that gives the shelter its name. See the 10-section exhibit on Bonfire Shelter to learn more.