Was Ancient Man There Too? : Fossils Found at Army’s Desert Training Center

Archeologists have uncovered petrified fossils of a prehistoric mammoth and other creatures in the middle of the Army’s desert warfare training center.

But buried in the hot sand may be a more valuable find, according to Walt Cassidy, an archeologist employed at Ft. Irwin’s National Training Center near Barstow.

“If we can prove that man was here 18,000 years ago,” Cassidy said, “he could have thumped these big buggers on the head. We want to look for any scraping or butcher marks on the bones that would indicate the animals were hunted. If we can find any evidence man was here at the same time, this could be very exciting.”

Cassidy said the earliest sign of man in the Southwest United States desert region dates back 10,000 years, when the desert was a humid, swampy terrain filled with lakes, and where hunters tracked prey with spears. He is speculating the animal fossils found so far are at least 18,000 years old.

Hired by Army

Cassidy, one of only four archeologists hired by the Army to comb large military reservations looking for anything of historic value, said the 1,000-square-mile training center has so far provided a gold mine of information to scientists.

Under a mound of sand, half a mile northwest of historic Bitter Creek where pioneer scout Kit Carson rested, and where Spanish explorers and 19th-Century wagon trains camped at the remote oasis spring, archeologists think that they have found a massive grave of assorted animals that got trapped in a swamp.

Archeologists hope to find human artifacts among the petrified bones to connect a time link of mammoth and man.

Beneath the mound--a short walk from where modern-day tanks and warriors engage in simulated combat--archeologists have found a huge molar and the jawbone of a 10-foot-high woolly mammoth that had 13-foot tusks. Also unearthed there were bones from descendants of camels, horses and something that looked like South America’s llama.

Artifacts Found

Found scattered nearby and throughout the desert floor were pieces of spear points, arrowheads, beads and pottery dating from about 8,700 years ago to the late 19th Century.

The findings include petroglyphs--rock paintings of bighorn sheep--a 19th-Century U.S. Army cavalry fortification with evidence of a skirmish with local Indians, and some trash left behind by Gold Rush-era prospectors.

The discoveries of Cassidy and his 10 archeologist colleagues will be sent to the University of California campuses in Riverside and Los Angeles for carbon date testing and further analysis.

Working in heat that reached 117 degrees, the men and women sifted sand through fine wire-mesh screens and catalogued every bone chip in a 20-square-yard area. The site has been bordered by a six-foot trench they dug as they worked down through layers of soil, each thousands of years old.

3 Other Mammoths Found

“It would be great to find the whole skeleton of the mammoth underneath that jawbone,” said Cassidy, who added that just three other mammoths have been found in the desert regions of the Southwestern United States, which until recently has been largely ignored by archeologists.

Cassidy, a former Army sergeant and Vietnam combat veteran, has the authority to close certain sections of the training center to protect important historic sites. He fences off significant areas, creating instant “land mines” that tank commanders avoid while playing out their war games.

He said the Army has been extremely cooperative in his efforts to protect the region’s past.

Since being hired by the post five years ago, soon after it was opened as the National Training Center, Cassidy has surveyed 131,000 acres and recorded more than 400 sites of historic importance. Under a federally mandated program to protect federal land, the Army has spent $4.5 million to hire other archeologists to help Cassidy gather 750 boxes of artifacts that he hopes to place in a post museum some day.