2007/06/06
Mammoths
Custer South Dakota is a really nice town and there is a fair bit to do in the area so we decided to extend our stay to a week. With that decided we headed out on a day trip south to the city of Hot Springs. This is another quaint little town set in the Black Hills and yes, there are a number of hot springs and spas in the area. The beautiful old stone buildings attest to the fact that a number of stonemasons settled here. In 1974, just outside of town a bulldozer was beginning to ready some land for a housing development when some large bones were discovered. After showing the bones to a scientist at a university it was determined that the bones were those of a Mammoth and the subdivision was stopped. The landowner sold the land to “Mammoth Site”, a not for profit organization, who began to dig at the site. Still an active research site, some of the bones are left in place so you view them as they were found and to allow researchers to study the fossils of the animals in the position they died.
Bison are pretty big .... that's a dump truck coming towards us.
Babies are always so cute.
The old train station has been converted to an information center.
The former town jail.
This spring was very hot --- I think it was only around 75F
To date 55 mammoths have been found. By examining the bones the paleontologists have determined that all of the mammoths in the dig are males and the majority are Columbian Mammoths and the remainder are Woolly Mammoths.
One of the complete skeletons found in the dig. A large sink hole form and filled with water. When the mammoths tried to eat the grass at the edge of the hole or get a drink of water some of them fell in a were unable to get out due to the steepness of the sink hole.
A volunteer is using dentals tools to clean around a bone.
Zaph checking out the Mammoth statue --- he doesn't really like the looks of it.
Bison are pretty big .... that's a dump truck coming towards us.
Babies are always so cute.
The old train station has been converted to an information center.
The former town jail.
This spring was very hot --- I think it was only around 75F
To date 55 mammoths have been found. By examining the bones the paleontologists have determined that all of the mammoths in the dig are males and the majority are Columbian Mammoths and the remainder are Woolly Mammoths.
One of the complete skeletons found in the dig. A large sink hole form and filled with water. When the mammoths tried to eat the grass at the edge of the hole or get a drink of water some of them fell in a were unable to get out due to the steepness of the sink hole.
A volunteer is using dentals tools to clean around a bone.
Zaph checking out the Mammoth statue --- he doesn't really like the looks of it.
