Eleven-year-old Scar Boy, one of a group of primitive cave dwellers, discovers that he has a gift for making pictures and becomes an apprentice to Painter of Caves.
In a clearing by the forest, a little girl befriends a bison. Each winter they meet, sit by the fire, and share stories or simply enjoy the silence together until it is time for the bison to rejoin his herd in the spring. Their bond deepens as they grow older and the years go by, but one winter her bison does not return. After searching for him in the woods, the little girl, now a grown-up, comes to understand that though her bison is gone, he will also always be with her. Gaya Wisniewski's evocative charcoal-and-ink illustrations, enriched by the gradual addition of blue watercolor, masterfully convey this tender, affecting story of friendship and understanding the passage of time.
For twenty years Dan O’Brien struggled to make ends meet on his cattle ranch in South Dakota. But when a neighbor invited him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O’Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, “short-necked, golden balls of wool,” O’Brien embarked on a journey that returned buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half. Buffalo for the Broken Heart is at once a tender account of the buffaloes’ first seasons on the ranch and an engaging lesson in wildlife ecology. Whether he’s describing the grazing pattern of the buffalo, the thrill of watching a falcon home in on its prey, or the comical spectacle of a buffalo bull wallowing in the mud, O’Brien combines a novelist’s eye for detail with a naturalist’s understanding to create an enriching, entertaining narrative.
Reports on some notable archaeological finds of recent years. The author describes how today's archaeologists use science and technology to recapture the past, for instance, by studying ancient diets from bone collagen and reconstructing lost landscapes from fossilized seeds and grains.
George Frison's report on the 10,000-year-old Casper Site helped establish how large animal communal kill sites should be excavated, analyzed, and reported. With his background in ranching and hunting, Frison knows more about large animals than any other archaeologist. In The Casper Site Frison began to share that knowledge as well as the techniques of bone bed excavation; that, and the book's interdisciplinary approach, make it a landmark in paleoindian archaeology and faunal analysis. As Marcel Kornfeld writes in his new introduction, "One of Frison's outstanding contributions to Great Plains prehistory has been in the arena of bison studies and bone beds in particular, and Casper is one of its finest examples." Originally published by Academic Press in 1974. Praise from readers "The Casper site is one in a long tradition of bison procurement site studies by George Frison. This site typifies the use of the parabolic sand dune for bison trapping. The suite of analyses employed set the standard for kill site archaeology on the Plains and around the globe." Leland C. Bement, Oklahoma Archeological Survey "With astonishing fidelity the events of an ancient bison kill are uncovered from the rolling sands of Wyoming. That these remarkable events happened 10,000 years ago, and yet we see them so clearly today, is testimony to the skill of Frison and his team of researchers. A landmark publication." Jack W. Brink, Royal Alberta Museum "The brainchild of a remarkable archaeologist and a benchmark in integrative archaeological science, putting to work innovations in spatial analysis, experiments in technology and vertebrate taphonomy, hunter-gatherer ethnoarchaeology, geology, and zooarchaeology. One cannot help but sense the squeak of sand churned by desperate hooves when reading this classic study." Mary C. Stiner, University of Arizona
Miniature bonsai are tiny--several inches or less. Unlike their larger relatives, these smallest of the small can be potted, shaped, and pruned in an hour or two, and can be transported and managed easily. Creation, care, and maintenance concerns are thoroughly covered in this profusely illustrated guide for the novice. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In a Chicago junk shop three small-time crooks plot to rob a man of his coin collection, the showpiece of which is a valuable "Buffalo nickel". These high-minded grifters fancy themselves businessmen pursuing legitmate free enterprise. But the reality of the three--Donny, the oafish junk shop owner; Bobby, a young junkie Donny has taken under his wing; and "Teach"; a violently paranoid braggart--is that they are merely pawns caught up in their own game of last-chance, dead-end, empty pipe dreams.
Houston and Southeast Texas have an ancient, storied prehistory. Using data from hundreds of archeological site reports, a changing coastal landscape modeled through time in 3D, historical information on Native Americans taken from the accounts of the earliest European visitors, and digital GIS mapping to weave it all together, this book recounts the development of the physical landscape of this region and the cultures of its Native American inhabitants from the peak of the last ice age until the Spanish colonial era. Its 504 pages are illustrated with nearly 350 full color maps, charts, drawings and photographs.