The Hudson-Meng Bison Kill site is a fossil site located in the Oglala National Grassland

Oglala National Grassland

The Oglala National Grassland is a United States National Grassland in the northwest corner of Nebraska. It is in northern Sioux and northwestern Dawes counties, on the borders with South Dakota and Wyoming...

 of western Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 northwest of Crawford

Crawford, Nebraska

Crawford is a city in Dawes County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 997 at the 2010 census. It was incorporated in 1886 and was named for the late Captain Emmet Crawford who had previously been stationed at nearby Fort Robinson.-Geography:...

. It contains the 10,000-year-old remains of up to 600 bison.

History

Bill Hudson and Albert Meng were local ranchers who are credited with discovering the bonebed in 1954 while digging for a pond. Originally excavated by Dr. Larry Agenbroad in the 1970s, the dig was over 400 square meters and was considered the largest Alberta Culture bison

Bison

Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...

 kill site ever discovered. The bison found are not the same species as the bison that currently live in the United States (Bison bison), but are an animal transitional in evolution between the extinct Bison antiquus

Bison antiquus

Bison antiquus, sometimes called the ancient bison, was the most common large herbivore of the North American continent for over ten thousand years, and is a direct ancestor of the living American bison....

and the modern species.

In the 1990s, the site underwent another series of smaller excavations by Drs. Larry Todd of Colorado State University

Colorado State University

Colorado State University is a public research university located in Fort Collins, Colorado. The university is the state's land grant university, and the flagship university of the Colorado State University System.The enrollment is approximately 29,932 students, including resident and...

 and David Rapson of the University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...

, who suggested that the bison died of unknown natural causes and that the site was not in fact a kill site. Further research must be done to provide a more thorough interpretation of the site.

Recently, Dr. Douglas Bamforth of the University of Colorado

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 has undertaken excavations at the site.

The site was managed for two years by the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs under the supervision of the United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

. As of 2009, the site is managed by the US Forest Service out of Chadron, Nebraska

Chadron, Nebraska

Chadron is a city in Dawes County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 5,851 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dawes County. Chadron is the home of Chadron State College....

.

External links

• US Forest Service: Recreation - Will include information about visiting Hudson-Meng Bison Kill
• Colorado State University 2002 Field Seminar about the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill
• Summary of Recent Fieldwork at the Hudson-Meng Site - by L. C. Todd and D. J. Rapson, 1991–1998