Situated in south-west Alberta, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is one of the most important hunting sites identified to date. At the edge of a landscape of hills and of highlands cut by natural passes, a high sandstone cliff falls off to the east. This coastal relief lends itself ideally to primitive hunting methods.

For thousands of years the native people of the plains hunted the North American bison. The plains Indian lifestyle became dependent on hunting buffalo, and they adapted numerous hunting techniques to obtain their livelihood. The most sophisticated technique developed by the native people to kill buffalo was the buffalo jump. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is one of the oldest and best preserved sites of this kind with its elaborate drive lane complex and deep archaeological deposits still intact.