This is Huge

Jo stands at the entrance to the Mammoth dig site to give perspective to the massive Mammoth. The bull stands 14 feet high at the shoulder. His bones are in the foreground.

In 1978, two young men were looking for arrowheads in a ravine near the Bosque River in Waco, Texas. Instead, they stumbled on a lost world of Mammoth bones.

The men took one of the bones they found to Baylor University in the city and that resulted in a dig that went on for 10 years and uncovered a huge family of Mammoths, bulls, females and babies who had died in the mud by the river.

As the scientists gingerly chipped away at the remaining soil, they also uncovered a North American Camel – this is the fore-runner of the camels that currently wander the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. They are bigger than the modern camel but our guide, Eva, told us scientists believe they had made their way across the land-ice bridge to Asia. The diggers also uncovered a saber-toothed cat and numerous other creatures.

But back to our amazing Mammoths. These boys were spectacularly large – much larger than the African and Asian elephants that we know today.  A full-size painting of one is at the entrance to the dig and he stands 14 feet to the shoulder. The biggest tusks found at the site are 16 feet long and curly at the end.

These Mammoths lived 68,000 years ago and were grass eaters. They lived during the Ice Age. Waco, during that time, was south of the ice and our guide told us it was rolling grasslands with trees near the sides of rivers.  

Their molars were massive things – about the size of shoeboxes. Just as today’s elephants come to the end of their lives when they lose their molars and can no longer chew their food, the Mammoths suffered from the same process. They had six sets of molars to last their lifetime, Eva told us. And when the last set ground down to nubs, the Mammoths were around 80 years of age.

Based on studies of their close relatives, the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst bulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.

No one yet is able to explain why these creatures became extinct 10,000 years ago. Global warming is thought to be possible. But the development of men and their killing tools might also be a possible reason.

The dig has run out of money, so the bones still lie in the dirt. I asked Eva if there was any thought given (remember, we are in Texas and you don't mess with Texas) to asking the federal government to declare this a national historic site. She told me a team from the university and the city of Waco went to Washington last month to make such a pitch.

It is tragic, to us, that we were the only people at the dig - mostly because no-one really knows about this treasure. But now you know.

 

The head, tusks and shoulders of the bull Mammoth lie in the dirt at Waco dig.