The annual Earthwatch summer dig at the Hot Springs Mammoth Site began today. Site Director and Principal Investigator Dr Larry Agenbroad says two volunteer crews will again each spend 2 weeks working at the Mammoth Site.
Serving as Dr Agenbroad’s Crew Chief for the excavations will be retired National Park Service archaeologist Don Morris. Morris has worked previously with Agenbroad at the Mammoth Site and on research of the pygmy mammoth found at Channel Islands National Park off the southern California coast.
To help kickoff this year’s dig, the Mammoth Site brought back the Mammoth Day celebration with all its activities last Friday, with Hot Springs Mayor Don DeVries proclaiming the day as Mammoth Day in the city.
The Earthwatch volunteers…who actually pay to participate…come from all over the United States, with several over the years coming from a handful of other countries as well. A quarter of this year’s diggers will be returnees from previous summers.
Dr Agenbroad…who was teaching at Chadron State College when the Mammoth Site was discovered 39 years ago…has headed up the scientific exploration from the beginning, while Earthwatch joined the effort 2 years later. He says the vast majority of the discoveries since formal digs began have been made by Earthwatch volunteers.
They will be in the pit from 8-noon Monday-Saturday mornings and 1-4 Monday-Friday afternoons for the next 4 weeks, except on the 4th of July. Visitors who come during other hours can get a pass to come back during the regular excavation hours to watch.
The Hot Springs Mammoth Site was a sinkhole that trapped mammoths and other animals 26,000 years ago. It is primarily an in-situ dig, which means most bones are left in place once they’re found.
To date 60 mammoths (57 Columbian and 3 woolly) have been discovered as well as 85 other species of animals, plants, and several unidentified insects.
Dr Agenbroad is considered as one of the top mammoth experts in the world, and was the only American scientist to participate in the excavation of the “Jarkov mammoth” in Siberia in October of 1999.
His honors include the Lowell Thomas Award from The Explorers Club and the Schultz-Othmer Award and Medal from TER-QUA…the Institute for Tertiary-Quaternary Studies.
Agenbroad has been featured on a number of Discovery Channel programs including “Raising the Mammoth” ™, “Land of the Mammoth,” ™ and “Island of the Pygmy Mammoth.” ™
He and the Mammoth Site were most recently featured in the 3D film “Titans of the Ice Age,” which is in current release at IMAX theaters across the US and will soon be released internationally.
The Mammoth Site includes the bonebed enclosure and a 12,000 square foot addition that houses, among other things, the bone lab…which is open to the public and allows visitors to watch the ongoing cataloging and preservation of finds.
The addition also featuring many new exhibits including a replica of a woolly baby mammoth “Lyuba”, the Hebior woolly mammoth skeletal mount, Giant short-faced bear, and the Les and Leona Ferguson Artifact Collection. There are also life-size displays of Columbian mammoth, pygmy mammoth, and pygmy elephant.