Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

We drove south from Calgary to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, in the foothills of the Rockies near Macleod. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archeological surveys and oral history records the thousands of years of history of the site where the Blackfoot people skilfully drove herds of buffalo (bison) over the cliffs and used almost every part of each animal for food, clothing, tools, teepees and other essential items. The museum is excellent.

The cliffs at Head-Smashed-In sit well above the flat grassland plains below.

Looking back toward the cliffs from the plains below

The plains were covered by ice sheets during the last Ice Age and as the ice receded it left large quartzite rocks all over the sandstone plains. The hard quartzite rocks had been 'picked up' by the ice from the Rockies and the local peoples made use of the rocks for tools.

Quartzite rock deposited by melting ice on the sandstone plain.