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History of Hudson-Meng Bison Kill
the evidence reveals their presence...the wind whispers their story.

About 10,000 years ago, a small band of nomadic hunters stampeded and slaughtered over 600 bison on what is now known as the High Plains of Nebraska. The bison kill ensured the hunters' winter survival.

The large bone concentration began to reveal itself in 1954 during bulldozer operations to create an earthen dam. Construction of the multiple spring-fed dam was halted as discussions about the extensive bone field and the type of animal were held. Finally, it was decided the bones were probably sheep bones from a flock owned by an earlier rancher or homesteader.

A local rancher, Albert Meng, lived just west of the location. He was suspicious that the bones were bison, as they were too large for sheep, in his opinion. He, his son Bill, and a friend from Crawford, Bill Hudson, occasionally found broken artifacts eroding from the area of the dam and concluded it might be a bison kill site.

For years, Bill and Albert tried to get archaeologists interested in the site. Finally, in 1968 they enticed a newly-hired professor from Chadron State College to look at the promising location. With a research permit in hand from the Nebraska National Forest, the investigators began digging.

It wasn't long before the base of a Knife River Flint artifact was uncovered, protruding from beneath bison ribs. That discovery, along with 19 Alberta points, was sufficient evidence to prove the site was an archaeological bison kill.

The artifact was typical in size, shape and manufacture techniques to identify it as belonging to the Alberta Culture, first described from several sites in Alberta Province, Canada.

Additional artifacts, embedded in bone were discovered. After multiple field seasons which exposed, mapped and researched +400 square meters of the bison bonebed, the kill site was backfilled in anticipation it might one day have a visitor/research center constructed there.

Hudson-Meng Bison Kill Site, August 1975

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In the1990's investigators totally reversed the previous evidence. They did so based on 13.5 square meters of bone deposits from an area that had already been exposed as one of the least productive portions of the kill site. Based on that 13.5 square meter exposure, the investigators decided there was NO human involvement, that it was a natural death assemblage, for which they proposed many causes of death, ultimately stating, "We will never know the cause of death".

Credit goes to the USDA-FS personnel who were influential in having a permanent structure constructed in 1997. Today the archaeological investigation continues, along with various other research projects, and the excitment builds with each new find! Please review the 2007 Summer Research Field Season Link (below) for more information.