Old Man's Playing Ground: An Intergroup Meeting and Gaming Site on the Plains/Plateau Frontier

• Author / Creator

  Yanicki, Gabriel M

• Though it has been destroyed, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary study of Old Man’s Playing Ground. Oral traditions of the Piikáni, from whom a plurality of accounts about the playing ground are known, and other First Nations of the Northwest Plains and Interior Plateau, together with textual records spanning centuries, show it to be a place of enduring cultural significance irrespective of its physical remains. Knowledge of the site and the hoop-and-arrow game played there is widespread, in keeping with historic and ethnographic accounts of multiple groups meeting and gambling at the site. Archaeological investigation of the adjacent site DlPo-8 suggests a shift at this locale from residential occupation to ceremony and trade in the Late Prehistoric period, with evidence of trade together with gambling pointing towards the site’s role as an intergroup trade fair location.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Northwest Plains
  • Hoop-and-pole game
  • Old Man's Playing Ground
  • Gaming
  • Interior Plateau
  • Gambling
  • Piikáni oral tradition
  • Prehistoric trade
  • Peter Fidler

• Graduation date

  Spring 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3KD08

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.