LAKEPORT, Calif. – During a visit to the Historic Courthouse Museum in Lakeport I revisited a mammoth discovery. Literally, a mammoth molar, which is on display in the museum's geology room.
Thanks to Curator Tony Pierucci and his top-notch research team, I learned that the mammoth molar (fossil portion) was found at Alder Creek, off Bottle Rock Road, on Cobb Mountain in 1962.
It was taken to San Francisco and identified by a geologist at the Division of Mines and Minerals as a Mammoth Molar, prehistoric.
Try this: Picture Lake County as it was in the past. Now, go much farther than that, to the Pleistocene era two million years ago.
Next, picture a herd of Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) roaming what is now Lake County and the Bay Area. A herd could consist of seven to 20 animals.
According to E. Breck Parkman, RPA, senior state archaeologist, California State Parks, Bay Area and Sonoma-Mendocino Coast Districts, the mammoths averaged a lifespan of 50 years. These gargantuan animals are believed to have weighed in at up to 16,000 pounds.
In a paper Parkman generously shared with me, entitled, “California Serengeti,” he described the area, in the North Bay in the late Pleistocene era as, “... grander than anything imaginable.”
He compares the land then “to the famous Serengeti Plains of East Africa as described in early historic times.”
Parkman hypothesized that a great grassy valley lay where the bay is now located, and that there was an array of grazing wildlife, including mammoth, mastodon, camel, horse, bison and other herbivores.
There were also ferocious predators like saber-tooth cat, short-faced bear, lions and more. The flying exotics, such as huge vultures and condors, cast their shadows over the prairie.
Parkman has been interviewed by the BBC, Discovery Channel, innumerable journalists, and other worthy organizations regarding his discoveries that have led to his hypothesis that mammoths used what is now the Sonoma Coast and other areas as rubbing rocks thought to be used for grooming (see his paper on the subject at https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23566 ).
The following is my interview with Breck Parkman.
Q: Could it have been a mastodon molar instead of a mammoth molar that was found, or are there vast differences in the species?
A: We had both the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) and the American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) in our area during the Late Pleistocene. However, we did NOT have the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) here in California. They occurred further north and in the interior, where the climate was colder and more harsh. The molars of mammoth and mastodon are very different in appearance and easy to distinguish from one another.
Q: Have you studied the mammoth species, in your work elsewhere? If so, can you please elaborate?
A: I’m interested in the mammoth due to my work with the so-called “rubbing rocks” here in Sonoma County, unique features I discovered back in 2001. I’ve examined the literature from around the world, partly to inform my theoretical construct I’ve termed “The California Serengeti.” Last summer, my son visited The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota, as part of my research interest.
Q: I understand that mammoths lost their molars repeatedly, throughout their lives. Do you think we can expect to ever find more molars here in Lake County?
A: Yes, absolutely you can! Referring to one of his scholarly papers, he added: “... In Zoofacts, which estimates a total of four million mammoths resided in our area over the two million years they were here. That’s a lot of molars somewhere out there!
Q: What led to your mammoth rubbings finds in Sonoma County?
A: In 2001, I conducted a week-long survey of the Sonoma Coast (Kortum Trail), in order to try and identify paleontological resources. I was accompanied by Raj Naidu, a paleontologist friend of mine.
We began our survey on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after 9/11. It was windy that day, and we took our lunch break behind a large rockstack on the coastal terrace. It was our first real opportunity to discuss the incidents of the previous day, so we lingered in our lunch break.
The longer we sat there, the more we began to notice the unique polish on the rocks around us. Slowly, but surely, the topic of conversation turned from who was responsible for the previous day’s terrorism to who was responsible for the rock polish we were seeing.
Q: What is one of the great joys of being an archaeologist?
A: I have a great curiosity about the past, present and future. Being an archaeologist allows me ample opportunity to explore the connections between now and then and tomorrow.
Q: What is one of your most interesting finds as an archaeologist?
A: I’ve been an archaeologist for over 40 years and have worked on five continents during my career. I’ve worked with 2,000 year old mummies on the South Coast of Peru and with even more ancient “buffalo rocks” on the Canadian Plains, old rock art in the Red Centre of Australia, and Paleolithic sites on the shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia. I have seen interesting finds to fill many books if I had the time to write them!
Once, I went running across the rocky beach so as to jump into Lake Baikal (we had a sauna on the shore and part of the ritual was to get good and hot inside and then run out and jump in the painfully cold lake!) and I cut my foot on a still-sharp Paleolithic blade. I cut myself bad enough to bleed. I thought that was rather interesting!
In Peru, I had to walk through a vandalized cemetery dating to about the time of Christ. Beginning in the 1500s with the Conquistadors, and going right up to the present, people dug up the mummies to rob them of their funerary objects. There were almost 2,000 vandalized mummies on the surface of the cemetery.
Because this is the driest place in the world, preservation was astounding. I saw the mummies of young women with red ribbons in their hair. Tattoos looked fresh, even when on sun-kissed flesh.
There was this one grandmother who I walked by every day. She had a wool bag and I kept wondering what was in the bag with her, what had she taken to the next world. Finally, one day I apologized to her and then carefully opened the bag. It was filled with the botanical detritus expected of a doctor or herbalist. Roots, leaves, twigs, etc. She is there caring for people in the afterworld.
Another woman was buried with a great undecorated pot. I looked inside and counted six dried chile peppers.
For me, the interesting things are those small things forgotten, those little things that really tell us about people. Like the vinyl records I recovered from the fire debris of the hippie commune at Olompali.
Q: In your experience, are you aware of any mammoth tusk art which may have been created?
A: If you include the Old World, then, yes, I know of a lot of tusk art from France, Russia, etc. While we’ve seen remnants of worked ivory in North American sites, I’m not sure I’ve heard of any specimens that conjure up the feeling of being art. In Siberia, I looked at the worked mammoth tusk ivory that came from the famous site of Mal’ta. They are wonderful little carvings.
Q: Thank you very much. Is there anything else to add?
A: Archaeology is important to society, but the benefits are not always well understood. It’s not a matter of going in search of “treasure.” That’s what most people seem to think we do. The treasure is the knowledge we gain from the endeavor. And that knowledge is only relevant if we find ways to share it with the public.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.
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