| Though it has been destroyed, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary study of Old Man's Playing Ground. Oral traditions of the Piikani, 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. |
