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from the issue of December 15, 2005
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Museum to return battling mammoths to Panhandle
Titans Unwrapped
BY TROY FEDDERSON, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
More than 10,000 years ago, a pair of "testosterone-crazed" bull mammoths crossed paths on the Ice Age High Plains in what would one day be western Nebraska.
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| | | FOSSIL PREPARATION - Greg Brown, chief preparator with the University of Nebraska State Museum, removes shellac from one of two "Clash of the Titans" mammoth skulls, which were discovered near Crawford in 1962 with their tusks locked together. Brown and other preparators with the museum are readying the one-of-a-kind fossil (pictured below, right) for display at Trailside Museum near Crawford. Photo by Troy Fedderson/University Communications.
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Nearly equal in size and around 40-years old each, the two Columbian mammoths - one with a snapped tusk on the left, the other with a break on the right - battled for mating rights. However, fate thwarted desire.
With the broken tusks allowing each to jockey in close, the titans locked together and never separated. Eventually - after hours of exhaustive pushing or moments after a decisive twist - one fell, dragging the other to the ground, and each to their grave in the Little Badlands north of Crawford.
Preserved under layers of sediment cascading off the Little Badland formations, the dueling titans were rediscovered in the summer of 1962.
"We don't know exactly why they fell down, but it seems almost as if fate conspired against these two," said Mike Voorhies, professor of geosciences. "They really suffered some bad luck."
In the spring, the mammoths - which have been on loan to the university since found - will return to the Panhandle as the State Museum has begun preparing the fossils for a new "Clash of the Titans" exhibit at Trailside Museum near Crawford.
Museum preparators Greg Brown, Rob Skolnick and Ellen Stepleton have started readying the fossil for the exhibit. And, according to Mark Harris, associate director of the State Museum, the fossil will be in place at Trailside in the spring.
Harris said the exhibit - named Clash of the Titans to honor the battle between the mammoths - will initially be a work in progress, allowing Trailside visitors to watch it progress toward a simulated dig site.
"People will be able to walk around the exhibit and see these mammoths more or less as they were found in 1962," Harris said. "It is going to be a very dramatic thing, seeing these giant mammoths who died fighting each other."
In summer 1962 Voorhies was a senior at the University of Nebraska, leading a State Museum crew in a search for ancient mammals in the Badlands. When the weather would not allow the crew to go into the field, Voorhies said they helped set up exhibits in Trailside Museum, west of Crawford at Fort Robinson State Park.
| | DIG SITE - UNL geosciences professor Mike Voorhies (left) and an unidentified assistant remove sediment from around the locked mammoth skulls near Crawford in 1962. Photo Courtesy University of Nebraska State Museum.
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During one of those days in the museum, two men from the area brought in a fossil wrapped in a feed sack.
"That bone was quite a surprise," said Voorhies. "We knew right away it was an elephant. They are pretty scarce in that part of the state, so we went out to look and scratch around a bit."
Voorhies noticed a large amount of bone and received permission from the landowner, Tom Moody, to start a dig. When he called back to Lincoln, the museum director - CB Schultz - was less than pleased.
"Dr. Schultz had been here close to 40 years and had seen hundreds of things like this," Voorhies said. "He said something like, "Ok, that's interesting. But, boys we've got plenty of mammoths back here in Lincoln.'"
The crew continued on their search for 30-million-year-old mammal fossils. And - between that and work at Trailside - continued to excavate the mammoths in their free time.
Moody helped, removing the uppermost layers of soil with his backhoe. Voorhies and other members of the crew scraped away the remainder of sediment and in the process discovered two skulls, not just one.
"When we started to uncover the mammoth, the point of the tusk was headed the wrong way," Voorhies said. "We thought that when the elephant died that it fell forward and broke a tusk and it pointed back toward him."
The discovery of a second skull jolted the 21-year-old dig site leader.
"It was probably the most exciting fossil I've ever seen," Voorhies said. "Someone with a lot of experience would have known right away. We were basically teenagers without a lot of digging experience, flying blind."
However, the young paleontologists realized they found a treasure. Covering the bones in shellac then protecting them in layers of paper, burlap and plaster, the crew arranged to bring the find to Lincoln for study at the end of the dig season.
The agreement with Moody - who donated the fossils to the museum - allowed the skulls to be moved to Lincoln and required the mounting of one of the skeletons for display at the Trailside Museum. The skulls and remaining skeleton were to stay in Lincoln for study until a newly renovated, secure exhibit space could be created at Trailside.
Improved exhibit technologies and funds from the state of Nebraska and Friends of the Prehistoric Prairies Discovery Center - a group that aimed at constructing a new building for the Trailside facility - have made the return possible.
"When I returned to the university in 1975, it was great to see the old Crawford mammoths still here in the collection," Voorhies, who went on to graduate school at the University of Wyoming and then taught at the University of Georgia. "It is by far the best mammoth material in Nebraska Hall right now. But, it's going to definitely be a plus to get this back out to Crawford.
"This is a unique, dramatic fossil and it stirs the imagination to think of the struggle these two put up before they fell."
GO TO: ISSUE OF DECEMBER 15
NEWS HEADLINES FOR DECEMBER 15
Titans Unwrapped
Brown begins titan unveiling
Faculty, staff, students to aid hurricane cleanup
Group paves way for mammoth return
Hunhoff to address graduates
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Red Carpet Service can boost community image, tourism potential
University's teaching beef herd offers hands-on learning
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