Explore a 3D gallery of bone artifacts that AR Consultants has in its collections.
Bison Bone Flesher
Ca. 1750
Native American
Bison Tibia
A large split long bone with a flat bevel on the ventral surface and a series of narrow slits 1 to 3mm apart cut into the sharp working edge. Fleshers were commonly used to scrape the flesh and fat off the animal hide.
The flesher is made from the distal end of a left bison tibia. The dorsal surface is flat and the working edge is slightly curved. It was excavated at the Montague County Spanish Fort site. The fort was originally a Spanish fort from the 1700s but was occupied by the Taovayas, a Wichita tribe, and had three villages around the fort. They were able to trade with the French and formed alliances with nearby Comanches. In 1772, Osage marauders forced the Wichita out of the fort and the villages. The Osage destroyed the fort and villages as there are no later records of them. However, Wichita bands on the Red River did continue to build forts, according to the diary of Anthony Glass, an Anglo-American trader.
Sources:
“A Pilot Study of Wichita Indian Archaeology and Ethnohistory” assembled by Robert E. Bell, Edward B. Jelks, and W. W. Newcomb.
“A Case Study in the Interdepences of Archeology and History: The Spanish Fort Sites on the Red River” by Elizabeth A.H. John