Waco Mammoth Site

While Meme was visiting we took the opportunity to go and check out the Waco Mammoth site.

The site sits among over 100 acres off the Bosque River surrounded by oak, cedar and mesquite trees. Mesquite is not a native plant but was actually brought in and spread across the area. They are all over Texas now. 

"The nation's first and only recorded discovery of a nursery herd of Pleistocene mammoths" -- National Park Service

The story goes that on a spring day in 1978, Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin embarked on a search for arrowheads and fossils near the Bosque River. To their surprise, the men stumbled upon a large bone eroding out of a ravine. Recognizing the unusual nature of the find, they removed the bone and took it to the Strecker Museum at Baylor University for examination.

The bone was identified as Columbian mammoth. Museum staff members quickly organized a team of volunteers and excavation began at the site. Using hand tools such as brushes and bamboo scrapers, crews slowly excavated a lost world. Between 1978 and 1990, the fossil remains of 16 Columbian mammoths were discovered.

Between 1990 and 1997, six additional mammoths were excavated, including a large male (bull). Crews also uncovered the remains of a camel and the tooth of a juvenile saber-tooth cat , which was found next to an unidentified animal.

Though the first bones were discovered in the 1970’s, the site remained closed to the public until the end of 2009. For more than 30 years, Baylor University staff, students and volunteers spent countless hours excavating the site.

Approximately 65,000 years ago, rapidly rising waters from the Bosque River flooded the site. At least 19 mammoths from a nursery herd were trapped in a steep-sided channel and drowned. A camel may have also been trapped. Later floods buried the remains

A second event took place sometime later. During this event, an unidentified animal associated with a juvenile saber-tooth cat died and was buried. 

The third event involved a bull, a juvenile, and an adult female. Approximately 15,000 years after the nursery herd was trapped, these animals also appear to have been victims of rising water, unable to escape due to the slippery slopes of the surrounding channel.

So fascinating to stand where such an incredible event has taken place and see something that lived thousands of years ago. Definitely a must-see in Waco.