Many people visit Waco, Texas, because of a home renovation show. We stopped for a different reason. On the edge of town, under a metal roof beside a river, is a herd of Ice Age mammoths lying right where they died.
A lucky find
In 1978, two young men looking for arrowheads and fossils along the Bosque River found a large bone sticking out of a bank. They took it to Baylor University, where it was identified as part of a Columbian mammoth. Later digs found more than twenty mammoths, along with a few other animals, including a camel.
The site opened to the public in 2009 and became a national monument in 2015. What makes it special is that the bones were left in place. This is not a skeleton put back together in a museum. You are looking at the actual ground.
The dig shelter
A short walk through the trees takes you to a climate-controlled building over the dig site. A walkway runs around the inside, so you can look straight down at the bones, still partly in the earth.
It takes a moment to take in how big they are. Columbian mammoths were larger than woolly mammoths and stood up to about 14 feet at the shoulder. Their long tusks curve across the dirt. Rangers explain that the animals seem to have died in more than one event, probably caught by rising floodwater. Researchers think the site shows mammoths moved in family groups, much as elephants do today.
The site is small, and that helps. You feel very close to one bad day, tens of thousands of years ago.
Bears at Baylor
Waco has live big animals too. A short drive away, Baylor University keeps American black bears as mascots, in a habitat on campus beside the student center. It is free to stop by, and one of the bears was out in the sun when we were there.
Practical Info
- Where: Waco Mammoth National Monument, on Mammoth Lane in northwest Waco, Texas.
- Visiting: The dig shelter is seen on a guided tour, for which there is a fee. Check current times with the National Park Service.
- Allow: About an hour. It is an easy stop on the drive between Dallas and Austin.
- Baylor bears: The bear habitat is on the Baylor University campus. There is no charge, and the bears are not always outside.