It was the perfect time of year to visit.
South Dakota in winter can be brutal place,
but it would seem we were arriving between blizzards. Sweepers had clearly been
busy as the roads leading up to the Black Hills were clear of snow and ice, the
countryside, however, was covered in a layer of snow, making the scenery for an
Australian from a sun-burnt country, spectacular.
Expectations were high for this museum as
scattered along the highway were large billboards calling us towards the Mammoth
Site…apparently this would be a visit we’d ‘Never Forget’. Crowning one of the
large hills the highway heading into Hot Springs passes is a large mammoth- or
at least there should be by the time you read this. At the time of our visit
this massive concrete beast was under construction and at that point only the
lower half of the animals had been completed. It looked like it was going to be
impressive, I hope someone can update us and let us know if it is.
It was easy to see the museum from the
highway. For starters it was on top of a hill, there was also a life-size Colombian
Mammoth trumpeting at the sky at the bottom of the complex, and lastly (as it
was winter) most of the trees in the area had lost their leaves and there was
very little hiding the building from the road.
The car park was huge and totally empty,
proving visiting South Dakota in winter has its advantages. Sure many, many
tourist destinations are closed, but those that are open you general have the run
of the place of. ‘The Mammoth Site’ would prove to be no different as I could
have counted the number of visitors inside on one hand.
Clearly the museum is set up for large
numbers of visitors as the foyer is large and the entrance into the exhibit is
timed to regulate numbers and allow everyone to get a good look. Even empty we
still had to wait, but that wasn’t really a problem as you don’t wait long and
the foyer has one of the largest mammoth skeletons I’ve ever seen waiting with
you (nickname Sinbad). There’s also a pretty good mural running along one wall
depicting life in South Dakota during the Ice Age.
Once the main doors open it’s through a
small corridor, past another heavy door and into the main exhibition hall.
What lay on the other side is one of the
great spectacles in palaeontology (a theme that seems to be a recurring one on
this trip), a room large enough to fit some sports stadiums. To begin the roof
over the enormous room is covered with intricate wooden beams, making the ceiling
look something like a Viking longboat.
The mammoth site has a walkway running the
outside circumference, and a visitor enters this at ground level and gets a
good look down into the large pit cut into the hill the entire complex has been
built into. Wherever you look in the pit there are bones, enormous bones. Some
are solitary limbs, others skulls, some of these lay next to their bodies while
others sit on top of columns of rock where decades of workers have dug away the
sediment that once protected them.
Wandering through this amazing display I’m
not ashamed to admit I had the hell scared out of me when someone working on
the fossils moved from behind one large skull…I mean when you’re wandering
through an empty museum display, you don’t expect someone to suddenly appear
next to you from behind a creature that died thousands of years ago.
Now, some history…
In 1974 there were plans to build a new
housing complex along one large hill in Hot Springs, and excavation was begun
by grading parts of the hill to level it out. As the builders cut through the rise
they noticed some soil was lighter than the rest, and inside this odd dirt were
fragments of large bones.
A quick excavation revealed a few more
bones, though from what was still a mystery until a large tooth was uncovered.
This proved to be from a mammoth, and when further tests revealed there were a
lot more bones in the ground, everyone involved realised they had stumbled onto
something special.
Everything that had been collected till
that point was replaced in the ground and covered over. Winter was coming and
there was a fear the bones in the ground would be destroyed by the cold, while
the bones already removed may have been in danger of disintegrating. Placing
them back in the ground would hopefully stabilise them. Everything could wait
until warmer, longer days returned.
The next season work was begun on this
strange soil and very quickly a large skull was found. ‘Mighty Manfred’ proved
to be a large Columbian Mammoth, and with more fossils found it soon became
obvious the planned for housing complex was going to be put on hold,
permanently.
Money was gathered by the community, the
land was purchased and, as more and more fossil were found, the idea of leaving
them permanently in the ground and building a large complex around the site to
not only protect, but showcase the site was begun.
A drill hole was dropped 65ft into the
hill, and the core revealed the lighter soil went down at least that far, maybe
even further, fuelling speculation as to just what this site was. Four decades
later its clear the area was once a sinkhole, where a subterranean cavern had
formed and the roof collapsed. Filling with water and sediment, the pit became
a natural trap where animals trying to get a drink often fell into the depression.
The danger of this trap is best seen by one mammoth called Murray (Murray Antoinette
to be precise as this mammoth is missing its head), whose body was found in the
position it died. Its enormous front legs were pinned towards the lip of the
hole and the rest of its body stretched out behind as though the struggling
creature was trying to pull itself out. This situation for Murray was made
worse thanks to the soil itself, renowned for becoming incredibly slippery when
wet. 
Most of the skeletons so far have been
unearthed along the edges of the pit, strengthening the idea these were trapped
animals trying to escape. Unusually most of the mammoths are missing their
heads (like good old Murray) suggesting, even with their enormous tusks, the
skulls were rather buoyant and had separated from the rest of the body after
sometime and floated about the pond. One of these skulls (called ‘Beauty’ due
to its complete nature) sits on a stone plinth, the rest of the soil around it
dug away, greeting visitors as they first enter the excavation.
My favourite mammoth is also the most
complete. Napoleon…Napoleon Bone-a-part if you please… was a large male that
died lying on his back. Bone-a-part is so complete his rare hyoid bone (the one
that helps us talk) is present, along with some gallstones.
In 1980 the importance of this find was
recognised and the site was given the weight of governmental authority when it
was established as a Registered National Natural Landmark by the US Department
of the Interior.
A few years later a surprising find was
brought out of the pit. After years of nothing but mammoths, the skull of an
enormous Short-Faced Bear (Arctodus) must have been a welcome sight to those
working the dig at the time. Since then other creatures, such as three Woolly
Mammoths, have been found. All these finds can today be plotted through the dig
thanks to the numerous little flags that have been placed wherever anything
important was found.
Going through the site another amazing
feature easily seen (and highlighted by large arrows pointing directly to them)
are a series of Bioturbations. These are cross sections of mammoth footprints
made by an animal wandering through the pit, possibly by one of the creatures
that eventually died there. The amazing thing about these 26,000 year old
bioturbations is they show the true weight of these animals. The disturbances
in the soil from the crushing effect of a ten tonne animal placing all its
weight on the soft soil can be seen radiating down deep into the turf.
One feature of the excavation I really
appreciate is at the rear of the room. From here there is part of the path that
heads down into the pit, allowing a visitor to literally descend into the pit.
From here the area comes alive and you can clearly see the various levels of
the dig and the numerous skulls in-situ.
After a circumnavigation of the original
site, visitors exit into something more akin to a traditional museum. The first
thing you encounter here is a life-sized short faced bear. The thing is enormous.
As you can see by the picture, I’m no small guy, but this predator was
enormous. Living in the US for three years I always said the one creature I
never wanted to meet was a Grizzly. They run faster than us, for longer, and if
they cannot climb a tree, they’re big enough to knock it down with you in it.
Short faced bears were larger, longer legged and apparently far more
carnivorous.
Next is a life-like Colombian mammoth standing
next to a similar sized skeleton, along with a display showing how Ice Age
humans used mammoth bones to create living quarters. In a land with few trees, giant
mammoth bones and tusks would have been one of the few resources these humans
could use to build their homes.
There are numerous cabinets full of
interesting fossils as well as a dwarf mammoth display and a real life exhibit
showing how natives butchered a mammoth.
After all this, visitors exit the
exhibition into one of the better gift shops I’ve seen at any museum in the
States. Its full of wonderful mammothy goodies, mammothy t-shirts, mammothy
hats, mammothy coffee cups….its the place to go for all your mammothy needs.
All in all, a great place to visit and, combined
with the other stops along the Fossil Freeway (http://fossilfreeway.net/), a must drive for all paleo-fans.
If you are visiting The Mammoth Site, make
sure you do a little research on its opening hours. Because of the weather and
an obvious peak season during summer (when thousands of tourists head into the
wilds of the Dakotas and Montana), the museums opening hours vary. It is open
all year round, but some months it closes earlier than others.
