A Community Processing Plant

A Community Processing Plant. . , The enormous task of butchering began immediately after the kill. Adult men and women worked in teams to rapidly skin carcasses and begin cutting them into pieces small enough to be carried out of the sinkhole, possibly by adolescents. Meat and hides were placed on travois (poles and platforms harnessed to dogs) and dragged to the processing camp where most of the meat was cut into thin strips and dried. Marrow bones were broken open with stone mauls to extract the fat and other nutrients they contained. Later some of this meat was further processed into a type of sausage, most commonly known as pemmican. Bison skulls were also smashed open to remove brains that were used in the laborious hide-tanning process.