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A prehistoric beast Is coming home to DuPage County and quarters are beingprepared where he can rest his weary bones—all 300 pounds of them.The creature in question is the Black* well Mammoth* the bones of which have been on display at Northern Illinois University and, more recently, the Elgin Museum. However, on Saturday* the mammoth will once again be returned to its native county and will take up tempo-rary residence in the Fullersburg Woods Environmental Education Center in Oak Brook.Naturalists of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County are preparing to receive the bones from the Elgin Museum this week. The remains are to be placed in the Sam Dean wing of the Environmental Center. The existing marsh ecology exhibit within the Sam Dean wing will be modified* naturalists said, to accept the mammoth. Plans call for the bones to be placed in positions similar to those in which they were discovered nearly two years ago.The district has set Saturday as the “Mammoth Grand Opening” of the free exhibit which will run through April 29.Visitors to the exhibit also will be able ' to view a special multi-media program on the mammoth in Fullersburg’s Environmental Theater. Naturalists said they alsor are producing several new recordings for the sound interpreted nature trail Visitors have the option of renting a set of headphones and walking the two kilometer trail where thev willhear descriptions of what DuPageCounty was like at the end of the last IceAge.The saga of the mammoth began in June 1977 in the Roy C. Blackwell Preserve near Warrenville, when a heavy equipment operator digging in the preserve unearthed a leg bone and several ribs of the beast.District naturalists tentatively identified the remains as those of either a prehistoric mastodon or the rarer wooiy mammoth. Both of these animals resembled modem elephants and roamed whatis now DuPage County more than 10,000 years ago.Archaeologists from various institutions confirmed the bones were those of a mammoth, the first to be discovered in DuPage County.Naturalists, assisted by graduate students from Northern Illinois University, removed approximately 80 percent of the skeleton during six weeks of excavations. Portions of the animal, including the skull, were not found, leading naturalists to conclude that it could have been broken up and washed away shortly after the mammoth died.The bones were transferred to the laboratories of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb for further study. Tests proved that the animal was a young mammoth, probably less than 20-years-old when it died. Other test results led scientists to conclude the creature died between between 13.000 and 15,000 years ago when the last glacier was beginningTHE WORLD—Naperville* H* Tfurxdtjr* Mirth 23* lfT9DuPoge County Forest Preserve District naturalist Michael Riddetdisplays o leg bone of the Blackwell Mammoth, found in theBlackwell Forest Preserve near Warrenville in 1977.its retreat northward. on Spring Road, between York Road andThe exhibit will be open daily from 9 Route 83, about a half-mile west of thea.m. to 5:30 p.m. Fullersburg Woods is Old Graue Mill Museum in Oak Brook.
Newspaper Details
Dekalb World
Dekalb, Illinois, US
Thu, Mar 08, 1979
Page 49
Full Page
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USA 07 Sep 2020
Other Publications Near Dekalb, Illinois
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