Culture
Plains Nations
Location
Wyoming, United States
Key Figures
Tukudika (Shoshone sheep eaters)
Images via Wikimedia Commons
The Myth
The story as told by the culture
Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone is one of the most significant lithic source sites on the continent — a massive exposure of volcanic glass (obsidian) that was quarried and traded across North America for at least 11,000 years. Obsidian from this specific cliff has been identified in archaeological sites from Ohio to the Pacific Coast, from Alberta to Texas. It was not merely a raw material — obsidian was a substance of spiritual power.
For the Shoshone (Eastern Shoshone, or Tukudika — the 'sheep eaters' of the Yellowstone high country), the entire Yellowstone plateau was home territory, not a wilderness to be avoided. The geothermal features — geysers, hot springs, fumaroles — were understood as living expressions of spiritual power, places where the earth's interior was visible and active. Obsidian Cliff was part of this sacred landscape.
The Crow, Blackfeet, Bannock, and Nez Perce also had deep connections to the Yellowstone region. The Crow call the Yellowstone area 'the land of the burning ground' and their oral traditions describe the geothermal features as places of power and danger. The Blackfeet associated the geysers with spiritual beings. Far from the popular myth that Native peoples avoided Yellowstone out of fear, the archaeological record shows continuous, intensive use of the plateau for over 11,000 years.
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Myth types
The Place
The physical location today
Obsidian Cliff is a 150-foot-high exposure of volcanic glass along the Grand Loop Road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park. The cliff was formed roughly 180,000 years ago by a rhyolite lava flow. The obsidian is jet-black, glassy, and visible from the roadside pullout. A National Historic Landmark marker identifies the site.
Yellowstone itself sits atop one of the largest active volcanic systems on Earth — the Yellowstone Caldera, which last erupted catastrophically 640,000 years ago. The geothermal features (geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots) are surface expressions of a magma chamber lying roughly 5 miles below the surface.
Visit information
Access
Yellowstone National Park — entrance fee required
Nearest city
West Yellowstone, MT / Gardiner, MT
Notes
Obsidian Cliff is a roadside pullout on the Grand Loop Road between Mammoth and Norris. Collecting obsidian is strictly prohibited. The cliff is best visited as part of a broader Yellowstone trip — Norris Geyser Basin is 6 miles south and Mammoth Hot Springs 12 miles north.
The History
What archaeology and scholarship tell us
Peter Nabokov and Lawrence Loendorf's 'Restoring a Presence: American Indians and Yellowstone National Park' (2004) is the definitive study of Indigenous connections to Yellowstone. The authors document extensive evidence of continuous Native American use of the park area, challenging the 19th-century myth — propagated to justify the creation of the park as an 'uninhabited wilderness' — that Indians feared the geothermal features and avoided the plateau.
Obsidian from the Yellowstone source has been geochemically fingerprinted and identified in archaeological contexts across the continent, documenting trade networks spanning thousands of miles. Obsidian Cliff was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996, one of the few such designations recognizing a site's significance to precontact Indigenous peoples. The Shoshone, Crow, and other tribal nations continue to advocate for greater recognition of their ancestral connections to Yellowstone.
Sources
Nabokov, Peter and Lawrence Loendorf. Restoring a Presence: American Indians and Yellowstone National Park (2004). University of Oklahoma Press. Definitive study of Indigenous connections to Yellowstone, challenging the myth that Native peoples avoided the park
Tier 111,000+ years of continuous use; ongoing
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