Hudson Meng Traditional Geocache
goofy&grumpy: I am archiving this one because it caused too much confusion. The coords weren't off 250, but rather amazingly, there happened to be a hide-a-key 250 feet from the actual container. Crazy I know.
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(small)
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This is more of a get-you-there cache. Once there, the cache should be very easy to find. I hid this container at the Hudson Meng site, but it is before the entrance gate. That way a person could get this cache during any hours. You will not need to go into the site to get this cache, but it may be something you want to do if you like science, history, or better yet, natural histories.
When Albert Meng was preparing to build a pond in the early 1950s, he uncovered bones weathering out of an eroding bank, and could not have imagined how important his discovery would become. A local rancher interested in archaeology, Albert, and his friend Bill Hudson, sought professional advice to see if the bones were important to science.
Finally succeeding after several years, the two men lent their names to what today is the largest bison bonebed (estimated to be about the size of a football field) in the Western Hemisphere. The Hudson-Meng Bison Kill is an outstanding example of how ordinary people can make extraordinary contributions to understanding our past.
The story of the bonebed is mysterious and exciting. Scientists identified an extinct species of bison (Bison antiquus) during the first excavations in the 1970s. Stone artifacts found near the bones were identified with the Alberta culture. These plains hunters relied heavily upon bison for their survival as did later inhabitants. Archaeologists theorized that the bone layer resulted from a bison jump, with as many as 1,000 bison being stampeded over a nearby cliff, killed with spears, dismembered, and then moved several meters from the drop area for systematic butchering.
Current excavations at the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill began in 1991 in cooperation with archaeologists from Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming. These researchers proposed a different interpretation: The bonebed resulted from a natural death event, not a bison jump. If humans were not responsible for the demise of the bison at this bonebed, then what caused them to die? It's still a mystery that intrigues both visitors and scientists from around the world.
The site is located in Nebraska's Oglala National Grassland, on the shoulder of the picturesque Pine Ridge, overlooking the Black Hills of South Dakota. And it's only a few miles to the moonscape of Toadstool Geologic Park.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Qba'g ybbx va lhppnf. Frnepu arne gur fvta.