It's often said that things are bigger in Texas. They have 72 ounce steaks in Amarillo, huge gas stations (Buc-ees!), pride, hair, and just about everything else. So it goes with the saying that the ancient elephants found in Texas would be massively bigger than modern elephants. And they were.
Columbian mammoths were found in Waco and these things were big. We’re talking 14 feet tall and weighing over 20,000 pounds big. The site was found in 1978 and it is one of the newest US National Monuments. "We opened up as a city park in 2009 and became a National Monument in 2015," says Dava Butler, Secondary Education Coordinator for the monument. With the designation came more support, preservation, and visitors. "We had about 20,000 visitors a year when we were a city park, and now we get a little over 100,000," Butler says, "People come far and wide for the arrowhead of the National Parks."
What do folks do when they come? Many go on the tour, which departs every 30 minutes during operating hours. "You get to go with a ranger, usually in a pretty intimate setting, and get an in-depth history of the site and the Ice Age," Butler explains. On the website it says that visitors walk down a 300 yard paved path to the Dig Shelter where mammoth fossils are in situ (still in their original position within the bone bed). Many folks think this is such a treat. One reviewer describes her experience: "The mammoth place was very interesting and resonated with me since I'm an old fossil too....and now I have the shirt to prove it.....they have a nice gift shop. With our senior discount we got a guided tour for around 4 dollars apiece, and our guide was very personable and knowledgeable, and made a point of including the only kid in our group in every part of his presentation. Lots of cool bones to look at, all of which are inside a big building."
Replica painting of the Columbian Mammoth at the Waco Mammoth Site. [Photo/Jay Galvin]
The way the tour is set up is of course interesting, as is what folks are seeing. "Here's the thing when you have ancient animals - you basically have to predict what life was like for them and their behaviors based on a jumble of old bones," Butler says, "And here, we have a snapshot of the mammoth's behavior and can learn a lot about their family dynamic from it." What are excavated from the site is the fossil remains of at least 22 mammoths that perished in a single natural event. "What we have are mothers and babies that perished together," she says.
What happened to the mammoths is still up for debate, though there are basically two theories. The original hypothesis was that the mammoths came to the area in response to a drought (located right on the Bosque River), stripped the land of plant cover, and got caught and killed in a flash flood that resulted. The more recent hypothesis is that the mammoths died because of the drought, and later the carcasses were covered by various floods throughout the years. “They both agree that it started with a drought and ended with a flood. What we’re trying to figure out is whether the herd was still alive when the flood occurred,” Butler says.
The Columbian mammoths could live up to 80 years. They lived mostly in the United States and Mexico, while the related wooly mammoth lived further up north in Canada, Asia, and Europe. They lived in North America from about 100,000 years ago and coexisted with the first humans in the United States until about 10,000 years ago. They were herbivores, with adults having to eat about 400 pounds of food a day. Most scientists think they existed like modern elephants, where they live in female-led groups, and this is supported by the Waco site. How they became extinct is up for debate. Some scientists think it is climate change, some think it is hunting, and some think it’s a combination of both.
Other interesting fossils are an American alligator and a camel. Yes, a camel! Turns out, there was a type of camel that lived in North America that was related to both the camels of the Middle East and llamas of South America. It is unknown if this species had a hump like camels or not like the llamas as the hump is tissue instead of bone, but it is fascinating, nonetheless.
The human history associated with the site is relatively recent. In 1978, Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin went looking for fossils and arrowheads along the Bosque River. They found a large bone, excavated it and brought it to Baylor University’s museum. Since then, the museum has excavated 22 mammoths, the American alligator, a camel, a giant tortoise, a tooth from a sabre-tooth cat, and an unidentified animal. Many of the mammoths were removed for preservation, but six are still on-site and visible in the Dig Shelter.
So if you are travelling down I-35 to warmer weather, stop off in Waco. If you are trying to hit as many National Monuments as possible, this will be the spot to be. If you have an interest in history, Waco Mammoth National Monument is a must see. Not only is there history to uncover, intact, but, according to over 1,000 reviews at 4.6 stars on Google, the tours and everything this place has to offer is educational, exciting, and fun.
Destinations, History, National Parks, Nature, Outdoors, Texas, Wildlife