Waco Mammoth National Monument

A big bull lying where he fell 51,000 years ago

After the eclipse, both Scott and Caty had to leave Texas; Caty had to work and Scott and a friend were heading to Clarksdale, Mississippi, for the Juke Joint Festival. 

Since we had driven, I had my car and I had time, so I headed to south Texas to try and get some birds that had eluded me on previous birding trips. 

On the first day, I planned to go to the Colleyville Nature Center after dropping them at the airport. This marvelous suburban park has a wide variety of resident birds and is a great spot for migrating birds (and April is the beginning of spring migration). The CNC seldom disappoints. 

CNC has a nice population of Barred Owls

Then, I was going to spend the night in Waco before heading south to look for target birds. 

The weather, however, had other ideas. It had recently rained and was raining lightly. Heavier rain was predicted for later. The CNC is prone to flooding and can get very muddy. I decided to just head on down to Waco. 

Just before our trip, Caty reminded me about Waco Mammoth National Monument, one of our newer National Monuments. It sounded a lot like the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota, with the added allure of being a National Monument to check off my list. 

No, I am not trying to visit all National Monuments like I am aiming for all National Parks (I have just one left to visit). But, I don’t pass them up, either. I have been to about half of the National Monuments. 

So, I drove down in sprinkling rain and threatening skies. I got to Waco Mammoth before the National Monument gates opened and then went in and paid the $6.00 fee for a tour.

The site is a joint endeavor, managed by the National Park Service in collaboration with the City of Waco and Baylor University. The tours are conducted by the City of Waco, so you must pay even if you have an NPS pass.

Map: NPS

As I waited for our guide, the skies opened and it started to pour.

The Park sits within 100 acres of wooded land along the Bosque River. It includes a paved trail and a “Dig Shelter” building protecting an excavation site. It is, as I expected, very similar to South Dakota’s Mammoth Site.

Normally, the tours meander down the trail through the woods and over a creek before entering the building.

Because of the rain, we walked quickly and got our full introduction inside.

It’s a pretty cool site with a great backstory and a fair amount of scientific mystery.

A tour in progress

In 1978, two teenagers searching for arrowheads and fossils near the Bosque River found a bone eroding out of a ravine. Thinking it might be a skull, they dug it up. As it emerged, they decided it might be a cow bone. But, at three-feet long, it was too large to belong to a cow. They took it to Baylor University's Strecker Museum (now called the Mayborn Museum Complex) and the museum staff identified it as a femur bone from a Columbian Mammoth. 

This now-extinct species, cousin of the more-famous Woolly Mammoth, lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (commonly known as the Ice Age) and inhabited North America from southern Canada to as far south as Costa Rica.

Map: Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose (California)

The Museum staff organized a team of volunteers to excavate to see what other bones they might find. Between 1978 and 1997, the fossil remains of 24 Columbian Mammoths, a Western Camel, a Dwarf Antelope, an American Alligator and a Giant Tortoise were found, along with the tooth of a juvenile Saber-toothed Cat next to an unidentified animal.

Bones of a female Western Camel

The remains excavated through 1990 – 16 of the Mammoths – are housed at Baylor University's Mayborn Museum Complex, many encased in protective plaster casts.

The other Mammoths and animals found after 1990 remain in their original positions within the bone bed protected by the climate-controlled Dig Shelter, allowing for both public viewing and further scientific study. 

A balcony above the dig site allows for viewing

The fossils were found in three levels, dated to about 65,000, 51,000 and 40,000 years ago.

The major significance of the find is that many of the Mammoths are a large “nursery herd” – mothers and babies together. It is the only such group ever found.

Mural that graces the Dig Shelter wall

At first, scientists believed that most of the fossilized remains were animals that were caught in a flash flood that killed them and buried them in mud, thus preserving them.

But, the relatively peaceful and orderly positions of the 65,000-year-old nursery herd seems to indicate that they died en masse – perhaps from illness or starvation – and were very shortly thereafter buried by a flood, preserving them where they lay. 

The bull's skeleton is intact

A large bull found above them (circa 51,000 years) also seems to have been dead when buried. His posture suggests he fell rather than being swept away. There is no sign of human involvement in the deaths and, because there is only minor evidence of scavengers, it appears the flood occurred very soon after death.

The site and fossils are still under active investigation. The bones, while intact, are extremely fragile (described as being akin to chalk). That is why the Dig Shelter is climate controlled and guests cannot bring in any water, wet umbrellas, wet coats or anything that could dampen (and, thus, dissolve) the bones.

More fragile than they look

The City of Waco and Baylor ran the site before President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing Waco Mammoth National Monument in 2015.

About Columbian Mammoths

Columbian Mammoths, which lived 10,000 to 1 million years ago, were herbivores, with a diet consisting of varied plants ranging from grasses to conifers. 

Painting: Peter Schouten

At that time, the Central Texas landscape consisted of temperate grasslands and savannahs surrounded by river floodplains. These huge animals descended from Eurasian Mammoths that lived in North America during the Early Pleistocene around 1.5 to 1.3 million years ago, and later hybridized with Woolly Mammoths.

The National Monument's mural is life-sized

Reaching 12 to 14 feet at the shoulders and weighing 10 to 14 tons, it was one of the largest species of Mammoth. 

It had long, curved tusks and four molars at a time, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. 

Tusks and molars on display

It most likely used its tusks and trunk like modern elephants for manipulating objects, fighting and foraging. The Columbian Mammoth preferred open temperate areas and did not live in the Arctic regions of Canada, which were instead inhabited by Woolly Mammoths.

Like modern Elephants, Columbian Mammoths were probably social and lived in matriarchal (female-led) family groups; most of their other social behavior was also similar to that of modern Elephants.

Illustration: Baylor University

The lifespan of the Columbian Mammoth is thought to have been about 80 years (modern Elephants live about 60 years). Mammoths continued growing during adulthood, as do other Elephants. Males grew until age 40 and females until age 25.

Illustration: Animal Database/Fandom

For a few thousand years before extinction, Columbian Mammoths coexisted in North America with Paleo-Indians, the first humans to inhabit the Americas, who hunted them for food, used their bones for making tools and depicted them in ancient art. The last Columbian Mammoths are dated to about 12,000 years ago, putting them among the last recorded North American megafauna to have gone extinct. Extinction was most likely a result of habitat loss caused by climate change and hunting by humans.

It was nice tour and seeing the bones where they were found is exciting (it makes you wonder what might be below your house).

Overlook

It was also interesting to watch how skillfully a Ranger avoided a confrontational discussion with a woman who insisted: #1 the scientific talk should include discussion of Noah and #2 none of the bones could possibly exceed 4,000 years in age. When she failed with the first Ranger, she went after a second. I saw her intent and headed her off with a series of scientifically based inquiries that kept my Ranger busy. Score for the science nerds!

I wish I could have walked around a bit more outside, but the rain was getting worse and the path was flooding (I didn’t see Noah anywhere!).

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

I was finished around noon and decided to head on south rather than staying in Waco, hoping I could beat to forecasted storms.

I did to some degree. I managed to escape hail and tornados, but I did drive through some of the heaviest rains I have ever experienced. I stopped a few times, drove 20 mph with flashers on part of the time and just kept going.

When I got to my hotel in Cedar Park (a suburb of Austin), the rain had abated. But, later that evening, Cedar Park was right smack in the middle of an area predicting four-inch hail. 

Yikes!!!!

Fortunately (well, for me), that hit a few miles away and we just had pouring rain, pea-sized hail, wind and lightning. Ah, Texas in the spring!

No, thank you! Photo: The Washington Post

Was weather going to swamp the rest of my trip? We shall see.

Trip date: April 7-17, 2024