When it comes to Paleoindian archaeological locations in Montana, none may be more unusual than the MacHaffie site near Montana City, just south of Helena.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 2001 archaeologists uncovered what could be evidence of a “protective magic event” — a horse skull buried in the early 1900s with an iron band, glass fragments and a marble.
The man who brought the area to an amateur Helena archaeologist’s attention in 1946 was killed the same year after his car plunged off a 400-foot embankment into an Idaho river. Coincidence or curse?
Tidying up the research
Unlike many other archaeological sites in Montana, this often-studied location is not known for being a campsite, a hunting or bison kill site, wrote state archaeologist Patrick Rennie.
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Instead, it seems to have been a midpoint where rock quarried nearby was broken into smaller fragments before being hauled to a campsite.
What’s also unusual is the quality of the rock wasn’t that good. Better sources are nearby. Which all prompts the question: Why stop on this particular hillside overlooking Prickly Pear Creek to chip stone that wasn’t that great?
