Bison

In the summers of 1958 and 1960, CU Boulder’s first curator of anthropology, Joe Ben Wheat, excavated the Olsen-Chubbuck site, an area near Kit Carson, Colorado, that contained remains of bison dating to 8200 B.C.

Hunted nearly to extinction by the time the University of Colorado was founded, the American buffalo owes its rebound mainly to private ranchers.