Part 14: Excavating Mammoths

To start reading from the beginning of our trip, click here.

After Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore, we headed to the southern edge of the Black Hills to Hot Springs. There is a mammoth (you know, like Manny from Ice Age?) excavation site that they have built a museum around. They are still actively digging, and the building was built around the excavation. The area is an ancient sink hole where mammoths would come to drink and not be able to get back out, thus remaining trapped.

Although the tour was fascinating, the even better part was the junior paleontology program. Justin got to be a real paleontologist and spend an hour digging in a dig site with mammoth bone casts. He was so excited when he started to uncover his first bone! It was a great experience, and Justin loved it.

First he had to gently scrape the soil away...

....then he was instructed to brush the dirt into the scooper...

...then the dirt gets dumped into a bucket.

He has spotted something white!

Uncovering the bone

It ended up being a leg bone

This is a model of the the sink hole, with mammoths trying to get up out of the slippery sides.

This is almost a complete mammoth skeleton, left in situ.

You can see a little how far down they have excavated so far. There are bones at every level.

Justin, with a cast of a mammoth leg bone. Huge!

To keep reading about our trip, click here.