Red deer entered North America long before humans did, perhaps as early as 120,000 years ago when water became locked in ice sheets and ocean levels dropped. They came into a land with plenty of room and food.

The elk that live in North America today are direct descendants of those red deer from Asia. In the past, biologists believed that the elk developed into a separate species from the red deer. Most biologists now consider all the elk in North America to be the same species as the red deer in Asia and Europe.

Sometime before the end of the last great glacial stage 10,000 years ago, humans crossed the Bering Land Bridge and traveled south into a vast ecosystem that may not have had any previous human impact. In the centuries to follow, people and elk would spread throughout North America and adapt to a range of habitats.

Co-existing with Tribes
People have been hunting elk in North America for as long as they have lived together in the same habitat. Archeologists have found clues in prehistoric sites that explain how ancient people succeeded in hunting such large, fast animals. Some ancient hunters used game-drive systems that directed herds along natural features such as cliffs and lakes, and along rock walls that humans had built. Most rock walls were only a few stones high, but that was enough to influence elk movement toward waiting hunters.

	Wapiti is a Shawnee name that means "white rump." Some biologists used to prefer this name to clearly distinguish North American elk from one of its relatives, the moose. In Europe, moose are called elk. (photo by Fred McClanahan, Jr.)

Other signs of elk in ancient life can still be seen at archeological sites throughout the western United States. Elk are portrayed in pictographs (paintings on rock) and petroglyphs (drawings chipped into rock) by the ancient Anasazi and Fremont people. Some of the pictographs and petroglyphs may have served as communication among the traveling people; others seem to have been simply decorative.

Early Native Americans probably made a variety of tools and other items from elk, but archeologists have found few remains. More recent examples, however, are abundant. Thick elk hides made warm but heavy robes for northern tribes such as the Kootenai, Cree, Ojibwa and Pawnee. Tribes along the northwestern coasts used elk bones and antlers in their harpoons and other fishing equipment.

Elk seem to have been important spiritually to the Oglala, a tribe of the Great Plains. They considered elk a dominant spirit animal and associated it with love and passion, strength, courage, persistence and swiftness. Members of elk dream cults shared a vision of elk and would dance in steps and with cries that imitated elk.

Elk may have played a spiritual role in other tribes, but this is difficult to verify. Accurate information about these traditions is rare in the literature, and tribal members caution against generalizing the role of elk in Native American life. Tribal traditions of the past and present are as individual as the people within the tribes. If students wish to learn more, they should contact the cultural committees of specific tribes.

Declining with Settlement
Elk probably thrived throughout North America until Europeans began settling the continent. The settlers hunted elk for meat and also killed the animals that ate crops, damaged property, or seemed to compete with livestock. They affected elk most seriously by converting natural habitats and migration corridors into agricultural land, home sites and cities. People began noticing the decline of elk populations as early as 1785. In that year, Thomas Pennant wrote a book about North American natural history titled Arctic Zoology. He noted that elk numbers seemed to be decreasing.

Elk populations continued to decline as the settlements grew and spread. The remaining animals were almost wiped out when, in the late 1800s, market demands encouraged people to kill elk for a few prized products -- the elk's hide, its antlers and sometimes just the canine teeth. (Elk canines are made of ivory and have been sought by different groups of people in North America.)

The destruction of elk occurred at a time when naturalists, hunters and other concerned Americans were beginning to realize the importance of the natural resources they might be losing forever. These enlightened conservationists helped ensure the survival of the remaining elk and other wildlife by calling for regulated hunting seasons, state wildlife areas, national wildlife refuges, national parks and national forests. Around the same time, proponents of an emerging discipline called wildlife management began to conduct research and implement programs that aided the recovery of elk and other wildlife populations.