Sometimes when things are lost for a great amount of time, they become treasures. An educational treasure was found at Biola University in La Mirada in 2002 when workers were digging on the campus for the construction of the Hope Hall dormitory.
Bones from a Columbian Mammoth were found and the site was taken over by the Archaeology department where it is in use as a working dig site for students.
Paul Langenwalter, Program Director of Biological Anthropology, said a backhoe operator was excavating when he clipped they edge of the mammoth's pelvis. He ending up pulling out a number of its vertebrae and parts of its ribs.
"It was providential when it was discovered," Langenwalter says. "We were starting out with a new full-scale anthropology department and it permitted us to expand it substantially."
The mammoth that was found is the same species that is at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
Langenwalter says that the mammoth site is a great place to teach students with a hands-on experience of excavations. "Most field classes have to go 25 to 30 miles or more to be able to have an outdoor classroom," he said.
As the students excavate the area they also find bone fragments from lizards, rabbits, antelope and wheel snails.
"Our job at this site is not to recover everything as quickly as possible," he says, "but rather to train the next generation of students to become competent field archaeologists."
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