Big Bone Lick State Park in northern Kentucky centers on a salt lick and sulfur springs that drew Ice Age animals into a marsh where many became trapped, leaving one of North America’s best-known fossil deposits. Mammoths, mastodons, bison, giant ground sloths, and other animals left remains here, while Native peoples also used the area over many centuries. By the eighteenth century, explorers, traders, and collectors were visiting, and fossils sent to Europe and studied in the United States helped establish that some ancient animals were extinct and clarified the difference between mammoths and mastodons. Preserved beginning in 1956, the site became a park of major scientific and historical significance.