The Buffalo People: Pre-contact Archaeology on the Canadian Plains

J.R. (Jim) Miller is Canada Research Chair of History at the University
of Saskatchewan. His latest works are Reflections on Native-Newcomer
Relations: Selected Essays and Lethal Legacy: Current Native
Controversies in Canada.

Journalist Liz Bryan sets out to synthesize the archaeological
scholarship on bison-hunting Plains people and to explain it to the
general reader in simple language. In roughly chronological order she
takes us through the evolution of prairie human societies from the
post-Beringia period—the era following the migration across the Bering
land bridge from Asia—to the late 19th century. As well as explaining
the evolution of Plains societies using archaeological evidence, Bryan
also describes and shows the impact of successive advances in
archaeological technique. For example, she explains effectively the
advent of carbon dating of artifacts and shows how useful that method
has been in pinpointing the age of the evidence that archaeological digs
have turned up.

The volume will be useful to students interested in everyday aspects of
Plains First Nations societies, such as their economies. The Buffalo
People shows at many points the heavy involvement of these societies in
trade, including in the period prior to contact with European traders.

Bryan is sometimes quirky in her use of language. For example, although
in the preface she decries the use of the now old-fashioned term
“pre-historic,” preferring the more acceptable “pre-contact,” in
the body of the work she frequently indulges in the discredited
terminology. Nonetheless, The Buffalo People is a fine introduction to
both Plains peoples and Plains archaeology for the non-specialist, and
students of fields other than archaeology with an interest in Plains
First Nations can learn a great deal from this work.