South Dakota: Mammoth Dig Site

On the second big day of the vacation we all loaded up in our respective vehicles and made the trek over to Hot Springs, SD to see the Mammoth Dig site. I'd heard about it and thought the kids might want to see it too. It was very interesting! A pit developed from shifting plates causing a hot spring hole to develop. This was warm water even in the dead of winter, which allowed grasses to grow along it's edge (can you imagine the lure of fresh green grass in winter?). It brought in adolescent male mammoths who would fall in due to the slippery mud along the edges and they couldn't get out. This "pit" was discovered when a housing development was getting ready to be built and the bulldozer clearing the land unearthed a skull. They have found 62 mammoths so far but the pit just keeps going down.

A building was built over the dig site and it's still an active dig site. Eight weeks out of the year people are digging and unearthing bones. They leave them where they find them. It was truly fascinating for adults and kids alike.

For a small additional fee you can sign your kids up for an extended tour that includes their own dig site and instructions on how the professionals dig up bones. Real (giant) mammoth bones were cast and the replicas were buried for the kids to unearth. They had to identify the bones they unearthed from a poster. They had a great time!

The kids loved this!

It was fun figuring out which bone was which.

The entire group!

On the way out you are able to buy a bag of sand and use the flowing water out front to pan for gold, or in this case fossils and rocks. Each kid bought a bag of sand and we weren't expecting much but they each got a big back of fossils like shark teeth and interesting rocks. It was fun!