Visited: April 2024
Nearby city: Waco, TX
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, Columbian mammoths roamed the hills and plains of North America as far south as present-day Nicaragua. These extinct beasts, cousins of the wooly mammoths that lived farther north, could reach heights of 13-ft at the shoulder and weighed over 10 tons. They had large tusks, and their diet consisted of varied plant life ranging from grasses to conifers.
Just outside the city of Waco, Texas, this site contains the only known remains of a herd of Columbian mammoths. Twenty-four mammoths are fossilized here, including juveniles. Scientists are not 100% sure what catastrophic event caused the deaths of the mammoths buried here, but it was likely a flash flood. The mammoths here died approximately 67,000 years ago. At that time, what is now central Texas was a landscape of temperate grasslands and savannahs surrounded by river floodplains.
We visited the site on our trip to see the April 2024 solar eclipse in Texas. We went the day before the eclipse...the place was packed! There were SO many people. It was kind of like Disneyland. We waited in line for about an hour to visit the site. 😛 It was kind of crazy, but we were all excited to see the eclipse, and we had nothing else scheduled to do that day, so it was also kind of fun. But I don't think the staff was prepared for the number of visitors that day. 😂
the line to purchase tickets went around the block...
lots of mammoth-themed merchandise at the visitor center
The fossils were discovered by two teenagers in 1978. They were looking for arrowheads on a farm along the Bosque River when they spotted what they thought was a bone of a cow. Once they pulled the bone from the ground, they discovered it was over 3-ft long...much too big to be the bone of a cow. They took the bones to nearby Baylor University, where it was identified as the remains of a columbian mammoth. The university began to excavate the site and found the remains of more mammoths, camels, tortoises, and other species. The dig site opened to the public in 2009 and it became a part of the NPS in 2015.
The excavation is still ongoing, and many of the mammoth fossils are "in situ" meaning they are preserved in their original place and the context in which they were found.
overlooking the dig site
Tara standing next to a mammoth bone
tools used by paleontologists
After listening to the ranger presentation and seeing the dig site, we took a short nature walk.
Even though it was a bit of a zoo on the day we visited, we had a pleasant time. Very cool to see these fossils. If in the Waco area, it's worth a quick stop for an hour or two.
Then we pigged out on mammoth-sized helpings of Mexican food.
Everything's bigger in Texas...even the waffles. 😀
For more info on Waco Mammoth National Monument: https://www.nps.gov/waco/index.htm
