February 13, 2022 @ 09:00 CST
Site Visit #21
There were elephants here!
Okay, not elephants but mammoths. Mammoth mammoths. The Columbian mammoth was the largest mammoth species in North America, and one of the largest in the world at the time. They may have appeared in what is now the United States some 400,000 years ago and hung around to greet humans arriving from Asia. The last ones disappeared during a mass extinction between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago – not that long geologically speaking.
Record-keeping of those early humans was pretty bad. Some cave drawings were about the best they did, so knowledge of the mammoths was eventually lost. Lost, that is, until remains were found in the 1830s during canal construction in Georgia.
In 1978 near Waco, Texas, two men went looking for arrowheads and fossils in woodlands along the Bosque River. They noticed something sticking out of the ground, becoming exposed due to erosion. It was a bone. A large bone. They dug the rest out and took it to nearby Baylor University’s Stecker Museum. There it was identified as part of a Columbian mammoth, and volunteers working under staff guidance began digging around the site.
They had hit a mother lode!
Scientists’ best guess is that they had discovered a nursery where a sudden, cataclysmic event killed several young mammoths, a few adults, a camel, alligator, giant tortoise, and ever a saber-toothed tiger! Items that were removed from the site were studied, and then placed on display in the museum at Baylor University. However, since 1990, nothing has been removed, though digging still continues. A large building was constructed around the dig site to protect it, and to allow visitors to see the dig close up (visitors pass over the actual dig on a raised walkway.
In 2016, the area was designated a National Monument, and the National Park Service manages the visitors to the area now. A separate and small Visitor’s Center is located off of the parking lot several hundred feet from the dig shelter. When the weather is nice enough, as it was on the day I visited, park rangers will set up an exhibit table outside of the Visitor’s Center, with bones and other relics from this dig and others. There are information cards with each item and a ranger to answer questions. A small gift shop is also set up outside, though there is also one inside with additional items.
There is no charge to enter the park or Visitor’s Center, but a ticket is required to view the dig site. These cost $5, with a discount if you are old (me!), military, a teacher, or a student. Armed with my ticket, I headed down the paved trail toward the dig shelter. The park service lands extend up to around one-quarter mile around the dig shelter and a short, unpaved trail departs from the paved one for a nice loop walk through the woods. The walk to the dig passes a picnic area and small amphitheater area before arriving at the shelter building. It is a fairly large, permanent structure with a high ceiling. A park employee waits by the door to take your ticket and inside you go!
The walkway passes over the dig, where bones are well labeled. A life-size mammoth is painted on one wall, giving an idea of how huge they were (and how stupid our ancestors were to try and take on one armed only with pointy sticks). Even taking my time crossing over to the exit doors, the actual time inside the shelter building was maybe 10 minutes. I took a slow stroll back to the Visitor’s Center and headed out.
Unless you come here and have a picnic, or some special presentation is happening, you will not spend much time at this park. That, however, in no way diminishes the value of this National Monument. The cooperation between the National Park Service, Baylor University, and other scientific organizations ensures that this site will both continue to provide new information about mammoths (and other life) in this area’s past while preserving the site for everyone to visit, learn and enjoy. Like so many sites I have already visited, it is providing history. In this case, it is just a much, much older history!
Steve
