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Paleo-Indian Winter Subsistence Strategies
ABSTRACT
This paper suggests that Paleo-Indians utilized
caches of frozen meat to survive the harsh winters
of the Northern Plains. To keep the meat from
spoiling, the Indians necessarily had to kill the
bison in late fall or early winter.
Introduction
Few archeologists are concerned with the problems
of prehistoric winter survival on the High
Plains. Nevertheless, the homesteaders, prospectors,
trappers, hunters, explorers, livestock operators,
and others who lived through the early
days on the High Plains certainly regarded winter
as treacherous. Failure to make the proper preparations
for winter was playing dangerous odds
with serious consequences. Even during the first
quarter of this century, such things as insulated
footwear, fast, comfortable cold-weather transportation,
and easily available, concentrated
foods were yet unknown. Few, if any, of the
present generation experienced the feeling of wellbeing
that resulted from the availability of simple
insulated footgear after World War II. No longer
was the person who worked outdoors in winter
forced to carefully prepare his or her footgear
each day, or else suffer the nagging misery of cold
feet. Improper attention to footgear could result
George C. Prison, Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming,
Laramie, Wyoming 82071.
on the High Plains
George C. Prison
193
in a bad case of frost bite that could cripple an
individual for life.
Winters on the High Plains are unpredictable
from year to year. One or, especially, a series of
easy or "open" winters tended to lead the human
occupants into the trap of improper summer and
fall preparation. When relatively mild temperatures
and light snow cover resulted in a very
pleasant winter, human travel was easy, game
animals were easily available, and a good share
of day-to-day activity could be comfortably carried
on outside. On the other hand, severe winter
conditions brought on different reactions. Long
periods of deep snow, high winds, and below-zero
chill factors required a different and very serious
approach to avoid extreme discomfort or even
loss of life. The assumption here is that these
pioneer conditions can be generalized to the
Paleo-Indian period.
The only safe survival strategy was to regard
each coming winter as bad, and prepare accordingly.
This philosophy of winter subsistence required
enough food to allow for the most unfavorable
conditions; since winters did vary in intensity,
there was often some food left. In the case
of postulated frozen meat caches in the Paleo-
Indian period, the surplus spoiled with the arrival
of warm weather. There is some evidence that
strongly suggests this was the case.
Late Prehistoric and Historic Winter
Subsistence
Drying meat for winter use has been well documented
for Indian groups of the historic period.