Mammoth Dig Site Nears Completion For The Season
Work continued at the Mahaska Mammoth dig site on Saturday despite the cold weather and snow.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Winter it seems arrived with a vengeance in Iowa recently, but the discoveries at the Mahaska Mammoth site continue to keep the interest of volunteers and scientists alike.
This past Saturday, despite the frigid temperatures and blustery wind, more bones continued to be unearthed at one of Iowa’s most active archeological sites.
Dave Brenzel of the Indian Creek Nature Center talked and updated us on recent discoveries at the site, including a new tooth. It’s a complete upper molar that is even embedded in a partial piece of a jaw.
Something that doesn’t have the glamour, but tells geologists so much about the site, is the process of squaring off the dirt walls so the geologists can help tell the story of life in Iowa thirteen thousand years ago.
“There’s something really complicated going on at the site here, in terms of the sediments. As we clear off the wall, we can see these flows of sediments that are different in different locations very close by,” says Brenzel.
He says that indicates there were pulses of water that impacted the location by carrying the sediments in. “In some cases [the water] seem to be carrying the bones with them,” Brenzel added.
Art Bettis, with the University of Iowa Department of Geo-science, has now theorized that instead of the once believed plunge-pool, the site may be, in fact, a spring that burst out and created a pool. The animals would have traveled to the pool and then died at the location.
The mammoth as they aged would have had trouble eating, and would have died at the pool as they traveled less and less.
So far, the site has given up mostly upper portions of the skull and jaw area. This is because as Brenzel says, “skulls float”.
The skulls would have worked their way to the center of the pool, “maybe we’re in the center of a pool,” Brenzel says.
So as winter sets in, scientists will be discussing the geology of the site, and continue to investigate what caused all of the bones to be located in this one location.
If you are interested in volunteering your time at the Mahaska Mammoth dig, contact Laura DeCook at the Mahaska County Conservation Center (641)673-9327 to get more information.
