Snowmass, CO - Nofstger Zeigler Reservoir - Primitative man and Snowmastodon sites

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The Snowmastodon site, also known as the Snowmass Village fossil site or the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, is a fossil excavation near Snowmass Village, Colorado. It was discovered on October 14, 2010, when construction workers building a reservoir dam to supply water to Snowmass Village uncovered fossil bones that turned out to belong to a young female mammoth. Official fossil excavations, organized by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science under the nickname "Snowmastodon Project," began on November 2, 2010. They ended, as agreed, on July 1, 2011, so that construction work could resume. During this short period, the project unearthed 4,826 bones from 26 different Ice Age vertebrates, including mammoths, mastodons, bisons, camels, a Pleistocene horse, and the first ground sloth ever found in Colorado.

The site, once the shores of a small glacial lake, dates from the Illinoian age of the Pleistocene epoch, around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago.

The possible presence of Paleo-Indians arose when Drs. Kirk Johnson and Ian Miller, co-leaders of the dig, and others noticed small boulders where they shouldn’t have been. Several soccer ball-sized stones were found in what was once the middle of the ancient lake. The rocks were next to, above and below a partial mammoth skeleton.

The rocks were out of place geologically as no similar stones were found nearby, he said. Paleontologists have established that early man used such stones to hide meat caches in ice-bound spots away from predators and to prevent the protein from spoiling.

So it appeared as if early man may have used Ziegler as a frozen meat locker, except for one problem: Man wasn’t supposed to have been here by then. Most researchers put North America’s earliest settlement by early man at around 14,000 years ago. Ziegler’s ice age finds are estimated to be between 40,000 and 150,000 years old.
researchers “were circumspect” when they began pondering last summer whether this was a meat cache, and with good reason: If they are able to find evidence of man — butchering marks left on bones from stone tools, for instance — it would rewrite by 26,000 years the earliest known existence of man on the continent. That scientists were pondering the possible meat cache came to light in the NOVA special “Ice Age Death Trap” that aired on PBS in February.

In early July, museum staff and volunteers hoisted a 10,000-pound cast containing the elderly mammoth and the tantalizing boulders onto a flat-bed trailer and drove it to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

“We’ve been excavating the rock, chopping it down, and looking very closely for stone tools or other evidence,” researches said. “If we find something like that, it would be game over.”

While the boulders have scrape marks, it’s unclear if they are from an early butcher. The site is seemingly far too old to have seen Paleo-Indians, but “in our heart of hearts, it looks like a meat cache,” researchers qouted. “It’s the classic case of not enough data, but we’re not done yet.

A temporary museum for the Snowmass Ice Age discoveries will be established, The exhibit, which will start out modestly, will feature one three-dimensional wooden skeleton of a mammoth, informational boards about the Ziegler Reservoir discovery, a looping video produced by the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, plus tables and activities for children.

“Don't expect millions of animals,” said Susan Hamley, the director of Snowmass Tourism. In remarks Feb. 3 to the town's marketing board, Hamley said there will also be at least one hands-on specimen, likely a tooth, as “people need to touch and feel things.”

Children will enjoy hands-on mammoth model building, not unlike what was offered during last fall's Denver Museum of Nature & Science open house at the Base Village conference center. More activities are expected to be in place in time for spring break.

While in Snowmass, enjoy the scenic views and endless opportunities to enjoy the outdoors, Ziegler Reservoir is located on private property and closed to public access.

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