Waco Mammoth Site

On the next day in Waco we went to the Waco Mammoth Site National Park.  Mammoth bones were found back in 1978 by some teenagers and they were smart enough to get them identified by the Baylor U science department.   The mammoths in Texas are not the woolly mammoth found in colder climates, these are the Columbia mammoths and they are, of course, bigger than the woolly mammoth.

They built a building over the dig site so they can control the humidity to help preserve the bones.



This area must have been a watering hole or river 68,000 years ago because the mammoths were found in herds like they were trapped by a flash flood. Most of the bones have been removed to Baylor to be preserved. Some are starting to come back to the site for display.

I have a number of photos on Flickr if you want to see them in the Waco Album.

Waco Flickr Album

Camel bones were found at site….. most likely they went from the Texas area to where they are located today by the way of the land bridge between the continents of North America and Asia.  Since eyesight is not good on mammoths and the camel’s are good, the camels were tolerated because they could alert the mammoths of any dangers.

They've even found a baby saber tooth tiger at the site.