Near Hot Springs in South Dakota’s Black Hills, The Mammoth Site preserves a Late Pleistocene sinkhole pond where animals were trapped, buried in sediment, and left one of North America’s richest concentrations of mammoth remains. Warm artesian water and vegetation drew mammoths into the steep-sided pond, where many slipped and could not escape. By 2016, excavators had recovered 61 mammoths, mostly young male Columbian mammoths, along with many other Ice Age animals. Discovered during construction in 1974, the bone bed became a museum and active research center, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1980, where excavation, dating, and education continue.

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Hot Springs, South Dakota · USA