Minneapolis Star Tribune – On a windy, much warmer day on this lake, Roger Van Surksum snagged the first bison bone with a fishing hook. The fishing guide knew it was no walleye and reeled it in slowly, carefully. The bone was 10 inches long, he said, “as black as the ace of spades.”
He put it in the back of his truck but couldn’t get it out of his mind.
He enlisted the help of two divers and, over the summer of 2011, they brought up more than 250 bones from the bottom of the lake on the east edge of Alexandria, in central Minnesota. Then Van Surksum pestered experts for answers. A state archaeologist found that the number and condition of the bison bones hint at an American Indian gathering place — a bison kill site, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years old.
“This could be a really important place … where a part of Minnesota history has been preserved,” said Brian Hoffman, chairman of the anthropology department at Hamline University in St. Paul.
Until recently, little was done to determine the bones’ age or origin. But this semester, a St. Cloud State University class is studying core samples taken from the lake’s bottom, which could reveal clues to the area’s past or even evidence of human settlement.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/bison-bones-found-at-lake-bottom-tell-few-tales/371006891/
