The historically introduced House Rock Valley bison herd has, in recent years, migrated from the eastern Arizona Strip onto the Kaibab Plateau within Grand Canyon National Park. Bison are considered a nonnative species to the southern Colorado Plateau, and the animals adversely impact sensitive ecosystems prompting National Park Service wildlife managers to pursue their removal. Archaeofaunal evidence of bison in the Grand Canyon and neighboring regions, however, raises concern that bison may in fact be native. Assessing the evidence within a zooarchaeological interpretive framework is critical since mere presence/absence lists of bison remains do not address the potentially complex cultural processes involved in the formation of archaeofaunal assemblages. Inter-assemblage comparisons illustrate a decline in relative abundance and skeletal completeness correlated to distance from traditionally understood historical bison distribution. If bison were present in the Southwest, as the evidence suggests, they likely entered the region only occasionally as small, dispersed herds.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/311670 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Huffer, Donelle Joy |
| Contributors | Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet, Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet, Stiner, Mary, Koprowski, John |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Thesis |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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