Majorville Cairn and Medicine Wheel site facts for kids
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Iniskim Umaapi
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 Location in Alberta
Location in Canada
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| Location | Alberta, Canada |
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| Region | North America |
| Coordinates | 50°35′6.32″N 112°24′38.07″W / 50.5850889°N 112.4105750°W |
| Type | Monument |
| History | |
| Material | stone |
| Periods | Paleolithic |
The Majorville Cairn and Medicine Wheel (Iniskim Umaapi) is a very old and important archaeological site of the Blackfoot Nation. It's found south of Bassano, Alberta, in Canada. This special stone circle, called a medicine wheel, is one of the oldest known. Scientists believe it was built about 5,200 years ago!
What is the Majorville Medicine Wheel?
The Majorville Medicine Wheel sits on a grassy hill. It's high up, at 918 meters, and looks over a big, untouched prairie. The Bow River flows nearby.
The main part is a round pile of stones, called a cairn. This cairn is 9 meters wide. Around it is a larger circle of stones, 27 meters wide. Twenty-eight stone 'spokes' connect the inner cairn to the outer circle. This design is very rare. Only three medicine wheels like it are known. The others are in South Dakota and Wyoming.
How Old is This Ancient Site?
Archaeologists have studied the Majorville Medicine Wheel carefully. They found that people used this site for a very long time. They used special methods like radiocarbon dating to find out its age. The earliest parts of the cairn are over 5,200 years old.
People kept adding to the site until Europeans arrived. There was a time, between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, when it wasn't used as much. Because it was used for so long, its purpose might have changed over time.
What Was Found at the Site?
Inside the stone piles, archaeologists found special items. These were likely offerings. They included things like sweet grass, willow, cloth, and tobacco.
They also found iniskim stones. These are known as "buffalo calling stones." They are pieces of ammonite fossils. Ammonites were ancient sea creatures. Their spiral shells broke into small shapes that looked like buffalo. The Blackfoot Nation used these stones. They believed iniskim would help bring the migrating buffalo back.
