Carved Stone Bison Effigies of the Northern Plains:

— Guest speaker: Bob Dawe, Assistant Curator of Archaeology at Royal Alberta Museum

More than a dozen prehistoric carved stone bison effigies have been recovered around the northern periphery of the Plains. Most found in AB, Sask., and North Dakota. Zoomorphic sculpture of any kind in the northern Plains is rare and often minimalist but the artistic quality and the anatomical detail of these are remarkable. It is proposed that these were the objects of symbolic magic intended to conjure up either hunting or reproductive success of the bison herds critical to the survival of the local indigenous people.

Mr. Dawe has enjoyed a 45-year career as an archaeologist in the employ of the Alberta government with the Archaeological Survey of Alberta and the Royal Alberta Museum. Mr. Dawe has extensive field experience in the Province of Alberta working on Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. As a consultant and volunteer Mr. Dawe has also worked across the arctic from the north slopes of Alaska to Baffin Island. A past President of the Plains Anthropological Society, Mr. Dawe’s research interests include the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Plains, the peopling of the New World, the Fur Trade in Alberta, and prehistoric stone technology.

7:00 pm at the Stony Plain & Parkland Pioneer Museum

5120-41 Avenue, Stony Plain.

Phone:  780-963-1234

Members $5 per lecture

Non-Members $10.00 per lecture

Pay at the door.