Dinosaurs in Our Past

Dinosaurs in our past: Dinosaur Footprint Cast, The Prehistoric Museum, USU Eastern Campus, Price, UT Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer
Dinosaur Footprint Cast
The Prehistoric Museum,
USU Eastern Campus, Price, UT
Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer

Dinosaur Footprint Display, The Prehistoric Museum, USU Eastern Campus, Price, UT  Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer Dinosaur Footprint Display
The Prehistoric Museum,
USU Eastern Campus, Price, UT
Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer

When I saw my first giant dinosaur footprint a the Natural History Museum of Utah, I said it was terrific.

“Dime a dozen, “ said my father-in-law, who was standing next to me. “The ceiling of the coal mine is littered with them.”

My ears perked right up. “Really,?” I said. “Maybe I could get one?”

As a young mining engineer right out of college, my father in law had been hired to run the Sunnyside coal mine about 25 miles outside of Price. He went on to explain that it was impossible to take a footprint out of the mine ceiling with risking bringing the whole roof down on your head. I had to agree it sounded difficult, but that didn’t stop me from sighing and saying, “I sure would like a dinosaur footprint for Christmas. “

In the end, he compromised by arranging a trip into the mine to see the footprints.

So, on a day no one was working in the mine, we climbed into the low riding miner’s car that carried us deep, deep into the heart of the mountain. When we got to the face we stopped and got out. In the dim light of our headlamps I could see we were in a huge cavernous room with massive pillars of coal, seven feet high and almost as wide, holding up the roof. And then I looked up and saw them – three toed footprints pressed down into the ancient mud that had turned into coal millions of years ago. Whole families of dinosaurs had strolled through this prehistoric swamp, leaving big prints, as long as two feet, and small ones, as small as six inches.

I found out later that the preservation of these footprints was a happy accident of sand filling up the prints soon after they were made. Millions of years later, when the decaying swamp plants were compressed into coal, the sand (itself pressed into sandstone,) held the shape of the foot.

A similar lucky mix of sand, water and pressure was needed to preserve dinosaur bones. Not all bones become fossils. So you can imagine the excitement in the scientific community when a fossil bed containing more than 12,000 dinosaur bones were discovered 30 miles south of Price. There were enough bones to qualify as a crime scene. To this day, my favorite spot in the Natural History Museum of Utah is the corner where 4 paleontologists on 4 TV screens square off with their earnest explanations for this massive bone pile-up.

    One says it was a watering hole that dried up so the dinosaurs died.

    “No,” says the second. There was too much water. The site became so muddy that the dinosaurs got stuck in the mud.

    The third offers up the idea that it could have been poison or a lethal germ that got in the water.

    “Oh, no,” says the fourth. The dinosaurs died somewhere else, and floodwaters floated them here.

It’s a mystery still waiting to be solved, and that’s what makes studying Utah’s past so interesting.

This is Mary Heers, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio upr.org
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

Sunnyside Coal Mines, UtahRails.net, Last Updated March 8, 2019, https://utahrails.net/utahcoal/utahcoal-sunnyside.php

Prehistoric Museum, USU Eastern Campus, Price, UT, https://eastern.usu.edu/prehistoric-museum/

Natural History Museum of Utah, Rio Tinto Center, University of Utah, https://nhmu.utah.edu/

Gallop Thru Time

Gallop Thru Time: The Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens), Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, Courtesy US NPS
The Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens), Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, Courtesy US NPS

Elmer Cook Recognition Plaque Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Elmer Cook Recognition Plaque
Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Mary Heers' Selfie with the Hagerman Horse Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Mary Heers’ Selfie with the Hagerman Horse
Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Three Toes on the Kemmerer Horse Utah Museum of Natural History Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Three Toes on the Kemmerer Horse
Utah Museum of Natural History
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Metacarpal Toe, Hoof Hagerman Horse Equus simplicidens Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Metacarpal Toe, Hoof Hagerman Horse
Equus simplicidens
Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Metacarpal Toe, Hoof Domestic Horse Equus ferus caballus Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Metacarpal Toe, Hoof Domestic Horse
Equus ferus caballus
Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

Cast of Kemmerer Early Horse Utah Museum of Natural History Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer Cast of Kemmerer Early Horse
Utah Museum of Natural History
Courtesy & © Mary Heers, Photographer

In 1928 Elmer Cook, a rancher in Hagerman, Idaho, noticed an interesting bone sticking our of the hillside on his land overlooking the Snake River. Intrigued, he started to dig around and discovered it was a fossilized bone and there were plenty more like it. Elmer alerted the National Smithsonian Museum, who sent out a team. This team determined the bones were ancestors of the modern horse. They were 3½ million years old. In the end, after digging into the hillside for 2 years, they took over 200 fossils, including 12 complete horse skeletons, back to Washington D.C.

My own fascination with horse fossils actually began a few years ago when I was giving tours at the Utah Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City. A fossil hunter near Kemmerer, Wyoming, had been quite surprised to find a small mammal while digging through layers of fossilized fish in an ancient seabed. This skeleton is now also in the Smithsonian Museum in D.C., but the Utah museum owns a copy.

When giving tours, I always paused my group as we entered the dinosaur floor. “I’m going to pull a whole horse out of here,” I’d say as I pulled a sliding drawer out of a chest with a flourish.

It was a fully grown horse about the size of a small dog – 24 inches long and 20 inches high.

It was over 50 million years old. In that time, the Intermountain West was a lush, swampy place. Fierce predators like the Utah Raptor roamed the land, and the mammals that survived were small and stayed hidden in the dense forested undergrowth.

Over the next 50 million years, the dinosaurs went extinct and the terrain dried out The Hagerman Horse (dating back 3 ½ million years ) stood about 4 ½ feet high. Most notably, it now stood on four hooves. The 3 toes on the Kemmerer Horse had evolved into a single dominant toe, perfectly adapted to running away from predators over dry terrain.

Unfortunately, this remarkable adaptation was not enough to save the horse. The horse went extinct in the Americas (along with other large mammals like the mammoth and giant sloth) about 10,000 years ago. It was the Spanish Conquistators that reintroduced the horse to North America. When Hernan Cortez and his 200 soldiers landed in Mexico in 1519, they brought 16 horses with them. Over time, some of these horses got away to form wild bands, and others fell into the hands of the Native Americans.

This summer I made a small archeological pilgrimage into Idaho, to see the Hagerman Fossil Beds, now a National Monument. In the newly opened visitor center I found a life size replica of the Hagerman Horse. As I stood next to it, admiring its shapely hoof, I remembered one more remarkable fact about the horse. The bows now used to play violins are made from horse hair It takes 5 horse tails to make a violin bow. To this day, absolutely nothing has been found that makes the strings of a violin sing as sweetly.

This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Mary Heers
Photos: Courtesy
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, History, National Parks Service, US Department of the Interior, https://npshistory.com/publications/hafo/index.htm

The Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens), Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, National Parks Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/equus_simplicidens.htm

Hagerman Fossil Beds, National Parks Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/hafo/index.htm

The Horse (Exhibit), Natural History Museum of Utah, July 21, 2014 – January 4, 2015, https://nhmu.utah.edu/horse#:~:text=The%20Natural%20History%20Museum%20of,and%20spiritual%20connections%20with%20them.
Natural History Museum of Utah,https://nhmu.utah.edu/

Fossil Horse Quarry Near Hagerman, Idaho, Worked by National Museum, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, The Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/object/fossil-horse-quarry-near-hagerman-idaho-worked-national-museum:siris_arc_367758

Plesippus shoshonensis Gidley, 1930, National Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/object/plesippus-shoshonensis-gidley-1930:nmnhpaleobiology_3590445


Putting the Pieces Together

Putting the Pieces Together: Reading the World Through the Comb Ridge Ruins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Reading the World Through the Comb Ridge Ruins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer

Fragments EBLS San Juan Expedition 2021 Courtesy & © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer Fragments
EBLS San Juan Expedition 2021
Courtesy & © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer

Cobs and Adobe Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer Cobs and Adobe
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer

In Linda Sue Park’s novel A Single Shard, young Tree-Ear and his wise mentor Crane-man suggest that “…scholars read the great words of the world. But you and I must learn to read the world itself.” My own experiences reading many of Utah’s chapters on plants, animals, and landscapes expanded this year as I explored the Comb Ridge area. I saw my first tadpole in the creek meandering through Arch Canyon and marveled at the corn cobs mixed with handprints in the cliff dwelling adobe walls sprinkled along the red rock. Reading the evidence this land holds of other times and seasons begs me to put pieces together outside in ways I haven’t done before by tracing words on a page.Putting the Pieces Together
My friend Stu Baggaley, a teacher at Edith Bowen Laboratory School, has taken sixth-grade students down the San Juan River every fall for the last five years. On the most recent trip he described to me a serendipitous learning experience as they found themselves on a knoll sprinkled with shards of rock and pottery. “The kids scoured the area,” he said, “picking up as many interesting finds as they could, and we put them on a rock to see the differences. It was amazing to be able to see pottery fragments that were black with white markings, some were striped, some had wavy coil lines, and others were pieces of rock that had been chipped away for tools. We made a collection and took a picture of it.” That photograph speaks volumes to me, but the story gets even better.

Later that evening when they were back at camp, they listened to a podcast from Mesa Verde Voices. “We learned what it means to break pots and why the Ancestral Puebloans did that,” he continued. “One of the reasons was as a farewell ceremony when they were saying goodbye to an area.” Reflecting on their finds on that knoll, they used Lisa Kearsley’s San Juan River field guide to identify what the pottery sherds were. “It was a transformative experience to be able to notice that there were hundreds of years between different pottery sherds, and this could have been a place for many different people to break their pottery and say goodbye and move on. We realized we were walking in the same place as people did a long time ago.”

Saying goodbye and moving on. Many speculate about the why, when, and how these people left as well as the significance of the breaking pot ritual I had never read in my Utah history textbooks. Perhaps, as Tree-Ear decides, “there are some things that could not be molded into words.” How many sherds and shards and clues have I missed? Reading the world is a miraculous skill for learners of all ages who encounter not only words but the wonder of putting together the pieces we find all around if we just look.Putting the Pieces Together

I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:

Images: EBLS San Juan River Expedition 2021 Fragments Courtesy & Copyright © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer.
Images: Cob Ridge Ruins & Cob and Adobe, Courtesy & Copyright © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer.
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Courtesy Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Posts by Shannon Rhodes https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

Canyon Country Discovery Center. https://www.ccdiscovery.org/

Edith Bowen Laboratory School San Juan River trip. https://edithbowen.usu.edu/students-parents/4corners

Hueston, J. What Pottery Can Teach Us About Ancient Pueblo Cultures. Real Archaeology: ARCH 100 Searches for the Truth. Vassar College. 2017. https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/09/17/what-pottery-can-teach-us-about-ancient-pueblo-cultures/

Kearsley, Lisa. San Juan River Guide: Montezuma Creek to Clay Hills Crossing. Shiva Press. 2017 (third edition). https://shivapress.com

McPherson, Robert S. A History of San Juan County: In the Palm of Time. 1995. Utah Centennial County History, Utah State Historical Society. https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/sanjuancountyhistory

Mesa Verde Voices. https://www.mesaverdevoices.org/ and https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/news/17-20_mesaverdevoices.htm

Park, Linda Sue. A Single Shard. 2001. Clarion Books. https://lindasuepark.com/books/books-novels/single-shard/

Toll, J. Wolcott. Making and Breaking Pottery in the Chaco World. American Antiquity, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 56-78. Cambridge University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2694318?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents



Rock Art

Rock Art: Fremont Petroglyphs in Nine Mile Canyon, UT: Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer
Fremont Petroglyphs in Nine Mile Canyon, UT: Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer
What did we do before radio—before cell phones, television, newspapers, and books? How did we tell stories, share news, warn of danger, or otherwise communicate with anyone beyond those around us? What did we do with words and thoughts when there was no one with whom we could immediately share them? The wilds of southern Utah can provide one answer—if you’re willing to look.

Rock Art: The Great Gallery Pictograph Panel in Horseshoe Canyon, UT; Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer
The Great Gallery Pictograph Panel in Horseshoe Canyon, UT; Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer
As far as pictograph panels go, Horseshoe Canyon’s Great Gallery isn’t terribly difficult to find. It’s also one of the most spectacular and well preserved panels of rock art in the state. Naturally, then, it’s fairly well-known and has seen an increasing number of visitors in recent years despite its remote location. Incidentally, I happened upon it by accident—had no idea it was there and would have passed right by if not for a chance glimpse of a ghostly set of eyes peering at me through cottonwood boughs. The Great Gallery’s ‘Barrier Canyon’ style of rock art is characterized by haunting silhouettes of human, semi-human, and animal figures painted on and pecked into the canyon walls of the Colorado Plateau. They are surviving remnants of an unnamed and unknown culture of hunter/gatherers that roamed Utah’s canyon country between 7,000 and 1,500 years ago—pieces of information whose meaning is lost to us now. We may never know why these people painted the “Holy Ghost”—the 8-foot-tall figure with empty, gaping eyes that startled me out of my hiking stupor.

Newer panels of rock art produced by more familiar cultures are a bit more discernible, though. The nameless wanderers who produced the Barrier Canyon style were followed first by the Fremont whose artwork appeared around 1,500 and 2,000 years ago and then by the Pueblo peoples we now refer to as the Anasazi. Both the Fremont and Pueblo styles portray relatively clearer themes—stories of hunting parties and the game to which they gave chase; spirals and directional glyphs which indicate water; people, animals, and the elements whose interactions are now carved into the canyon walls for us to find, decipher, and celebrate.

The author, adventurer, and local rock art expert Jonathan Bailey refers to rock art as “a vision of a…cultural landscape”—a story continuously told by people who lived close to the land long after they’ve passed. Some stories are secret, hidden away in forgotten crevices of the Colorado Plateau, meant only for those who already knew their meaning. Others are more democratic: a water glyph is meant for me as much as the hunter/gatherer that pecked it into the sandstone. It beckons every traveler to come and sate his or her thirst.
Einstein said time is relative. Looking up at the Holy Ghost, the artistic center of the Great Gallery, I felt I could reach through time and connect with the people who wandered this landscape before me—to see it and experience it the way they did.

I’m Josh Boling, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling
Sound: Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver
Text: Josh Boling, 2018

Sources & Additional Reading

Mozdy, Michael, Bold Figures, Blurred History: The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Natural History Museum of Utah, October 2, 2016, https://nhmu.utah.edu/blog/2016/09/29/bold-figures-blurred-history-great-gallery-horseshoe-canyon

Nine Mile Canyon, Natural History Museum of Utah, https://nhmu.utah.edu/places/nine-mile-canyon