Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump: The durative power of keystone institutions and embedded knowledge

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump UNESCO World Heritage Site (HSIBJ) is a buffalo jump site that was in use for at least 6,000 years, and perhaps longer as renewed excavations are showing. The durative power of the site suggests a level of cultural continuity that is relatively unparalleled through world history. Despite technological, environmental, and cultural changes over that time, the way that the jump was used remained relatively consistent. The durative power of the site can be understood by the application of theoretical models that have been used to explain social complexity elsewhere in North America. HSIBJ functioned as a keystone site over this long period, a site in which embedded knowledge functioned as a kind of social surplus. This embedded knowledge is one marker of the heterarchical social complexity evident amongst the users of HSIBJ.