Mammuthus columbi, 13′ tall, 10′ long, the majority resident of Mammoth Site. Credit: Dinopedia
A friend reminded me of a lovely experience my Arts Editor and I had in 2012 on a road trip to the area of Mount Rushmore – a visit to nearby Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. This is, as I recall from the docent’s presentation, part of a sinkhole into which the mammoths would occasionally fall. The sides were steep, the sinkhole deep, and the mammoths could only swim and scrabble at the edges for so long.
Today, a building has been built over the sinkhole, making the experience of visiting the dig site pleasant all year round, and includes (or at least during our visit) a restaurant next door.
Mammoth Site excavation
The bodies piled up, as one might imagine. Today, the bone bed is 67 feet deep; on our trip the docent gave out the lovely story that their probes had gone down to their limits, which I do not precisely recall, and at the deepest, they were still pulling up evidence of fossilized animals.
In the picture here on the right, we can see a mammoth in the throes of excavation (click on it for a larger version). Even to my untrained eyes, the spine is clearly visible. But gender?
Probably male.
I don’t know this from a visible cue, but, again, from the docent’s presentation: at the time, all mammoths so far identified were male. Elephant society is matriarchal in which females and juveniles roam in herds and the bulls roam freely, so if we assume mammoths used the same structure, then it makes sense that the free-roaming bulls occasionally fell in, while the queens, who in today’s elephant species are repositories of knowledge and become more valuable to the herd as they age, would lead the other females and juveniles away from the known danger.
Mammoth Site excavation
As an adjunct theory, and probably immune to confirmation or falsification, I have to wonder if the mammoths, particularly those found in the sinkhole, had access to fermenting fruit. It is not unknown today to see animals consume fermenting fruit and then act as if they were drunk. There’s a certain tragic eloquence to the idea of a drunken male mammoth stumbling into the sinkhole, thus to perish for the appreciation of paleontologists and their groupies a few thousand years later.
Predator skeleton found at Mammoth Site.
Mammoth Site is easy find, located within the city limits of Hot Springs, and its scope is not limited to mammoths, but rather to whatever is found at the site, which includes many species, from prairie dogs to mid-size predators to this fearsome critter. It makes for a pleasant day-trip for those of us fascinated by the creatures of yesteryear – Go!
