June 24, 1999
Some archaeologists in Nevada are getting a fascinating glimpse into the
past.
They're right in the middle of an exciting excavation project in a
prehistoric cave.
They're finding well-preserved animal bones that are 40- to 50-thousand
years old.
News Specialist Pamela Davis went deep underground to find
out how their work is going.
Imagine what it would have been like to live in this area when camels,
llamas, and cheetahs roamed free just a few hundred miles from here.
For a team of scientists based in Nevada, digging up ancient animal bones
in a prehistoric cave is the next best thing to taking a time machine into the
past.
Once upon a time, short-faced bears roamed this section of northeast Nevada.
Prehistoric camels and llamas grazed these hills, and cheetahs might have come
to drink at the stream.
Those animals are long gone from this landscape, but their bones remain in a
newly re-discovered cave at the top of a hillside.
BLM archaeologist Bryan Hockett says, "This is certainly one of the highlights
so far in my field career."
Hockett made it his mission to find the cave after reading about it in a
research journal.
Preliminary visits to the cave revealed a virtual treasure trove of
well-preserved animal bones.
"We found out that it was more significant than we could have imagined." he
says.
Now, Hockett has assembled a team of explorers to help him recover the bones
and learn the story of what this area was like 40,000 years ago.
"Only 10,000 years ago, probably all these animals that we're finding in the
cave were running around the valley out here," Hockett says.
It's a long hike up the mountain to the entrance of the cave.
Gloves and hard hats are a must for the dark and dirty work inside.
The whole team will get filthy crawling on the cave floor, which is clay.
It's also hard to see, and easy to bump your head.
Hockett explains, "You first enter the first chamber, which is very large, and
then you duck down into a smaller second chamber. And from there, you have to
crawl on your belly through a very small hole that is just about as big around
as an average-sized person."
The best bones, and the widest variety of bones, are in the very back of the
cave.
"Right here, this is basically a horse hoof of a small extinct horse," Hockett
says.
Most of the bones are in excellent condition.
They say one reason the bones they're finding are so well preserved is that
it's pretty cold in the cave. A constant 40 degrees -- so it's sort of like an
ancient refrigerator.
"That has really preserved them exceptionally well," Hockett says. "So there's
a good chance that there is dna in these bones. If there is dna in the bones,
then it just opens a wealth of different questions that we can ask."
Questions about how those animals lived and how they adapted to a changing
environment.
And the most curious question of all--what caused them to disappear?
Tomorrow night at 10:00 we'll explain how scientists hope to answer some of
those questions, .and show you what they found in the cave.
