Post by Azurerana on Nov 1, 2006 10:05:25 GMT -5
Noted paleontologist may work on bone bed findings again
Graham offer excites site officials
By Kevin Carbery
Wednesday, November 1, 2006 12:45 AM CST
They may have missed an inning or two, but they got a scoop.
Those who braved the rainy weather and decided to skip part of the Cardinal World Series game Thursday evening in favor of an annual informational meeting on the Mastodon State Historic Site and other nearby state attractions were privy to breaking news, according to site administrator Nancy Smith.
"Dr. Russell Graham, who did the excavation work at the bone bed in the late '70s to '80s, called because he's interested in working on our collection again," said Smith, who conducted the meeting at the Mastodon State Historic Site Museum in Imperial. "He has made a proposal to complete the analysis and write a report on the findings on the Heinze Cave collection that came from here."
Graham, a vertebrate paleontologist, is a professor at Penn State University now and is looking to complete the identification of the bones found at the site and conduct an analysis.
"At no charge to us!" Smith enthusiastically added.
Smith said she was announcing the news for the first time at the meeting because Graham made an offer in recent days. She cautioned that the project must be approved by officials of the state Department of Natural Resources Division of State Parks Cultural Resource program.
"I'm very hopeful the proposal will be approved," Smith said. "I have no idea when a decision will be made."
The DNR sponsored excavations of the bone bed at the site in 1979, 1980 and 1984. Graham, then working for the Illinois State Museum, provided the first solid evidence of the coexistence of humans and mastodons.
"He's the person who is most familiar with the materials already," Smith said. "He is an expert on the Pleistocene Epoch.
"(If the project is approved) it will bring better information about what is found here and a comparative analysis to other similar sites. I am excited about this."
Mod Note: This bone bed was first excavated in the 1840s by Dr. Albert Koch, one of the first semi-professional paleontologists in the United States. Koch first thought the bones were those of a dinosaur, was convinced they were instead an extinct aquatic elephant, put them together in a most fanciful way for display, and the bones were then purchased by the British Museum who rearranged them in a more traditional manner. In 1979, members of Dr. Graham's team discovered flakes and a Clovis point in the same layer and nearly atop a set of bones. This site is about 15 miles from my dad's house; for a while, everyone went 'Clovis crazy'-- one resident of my subdivision then found a second point a few months later about halfway between the subdivision and the state historic site.
Article
Graham offer excites site officials
By Kevin Carbery
Wednesday, November 1, 2006 12:45 AM CST
They may have missed an inning or two, but they got a scoop.
Those who braved the rainy weather and decided to skip part of the Cardinal World Series game Thursday evening in favor of an annual informational meeting on the Mastodon State Historic Site and other nearby state attractions were privy to breaking news, according to site administrator Nancy Smith.
"Dr. Russell Graham, who did the excavation work at the bone bed in the late '70s to '80s, called because he's interested in working on our collection again," said Smith, who conducted the meeting at the Mastodon State Historic Site Museum in Imperial. "He has made a proposal to complete the analysis and write a report on the findings on the Heinze Cave collection that came from here."
Graham, a vertebrate paleontologist, is a professor at Penn State University now and is looking to complete the identification of the bones found at the site and conduct an analysis.
"At no charge to us!" Smith enthusiastically added.
Smith said she was announcing the news for the first time at the meeting because Graham made an offer in recent days. She cautioned that the project must be approved by officials of the state Department of Natural Resources Division of State Parks Cultural Resource program.
"I'm very hopeful the proposal will be approved," Smith said. "I have no idea when a decision will be made."
The DNR sponsored excavations of the bone bed at the site in 1979, 1980 and 1984. Graham, then working for the Illinois State Museum, provided the first solid evidence of the coexistence of humans and mastodons.
"He's the person who is most familiar with the materials already," Smith said. "He is an expert on the Pleistocene Epoch.
"(If the project is approved) it will bring better information about what is found here and a comparative analysis to other similar sites. I am excited about this."
Mod Note: This bone bed was first excavated in the 1840s by Dr. Albert Koch, one of the first semi-professional paleontologists in the United States. Koch first thought the bones were those of a dinosaur, was convinced they were instead an extinct aquatic elephant, put them together in a most fanciful way for display, and the bones were then purchased by the British Museum who rearranged them in a more traditional manner. In 1979, members of Dr. Graham's team discovered flakes and a Clovis point in the same layer and nearly atop a set of bones. This site is about 15 miles from my dad's house; for a while, everyone went 'Clovis crazy'-- one resident of my subdivision then found a second point a few months later about halfway between the subdivision and the state historic site.
Article
