June 20, 2021
Yes! There were mammoth (top) and mastodon (bottom) teeth in the museum! [Hope you weren’t waiting for the suspense to build.]
We enjoyed the story of how Luther Cressman hypothesized that Indigenous people had inhabited North America (specifically Paisley Cave in central Oregon) at the same time as extinct Pleistocene species such as camels, mastodons and horses because he found arrow points and animal bones together. His peers in archaeology scoffed at his hypothesis, but RNA and radiocarbon analysis of coprolites (desiccated human feces) beginning in 2002 supported Cressman’s idea that the artifacts he had found predated the Clovis culture which had been thought to be the earliest inhabitants of the new world.
Cressman also discovered many sandals at another site. These shoes, about 10,000 years old, are thought to be the world’s oldest.
A museum display featured ash from the explosion of Mt. Mazama 7,700 years ago which created Crater Lake and ash from Mt. St. Helens in 1980.
Another display, Oregon fossils, caught our eye for its color and its familiarity. After a little head scratching we realized we had seen Ray Troth’s work in the Anchorage Museum three years ago.
We liked how this satellite view of Oregon showed the Cascade range as well as Crater Lake.
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