Ancient Animal Bones Provide Clues to the Past On a spring day
in 2009, members of Glacier's trail crew discovered bones
eroding out of the river bank near where they stopped for lunch.
Excited, they immediately notified the park's archeologist.
After careful examination of the remains, which were identified
as those of a prehistoric deer, and consulting with Glacier
National Park's associated tribes and the Montana State Historic
Preservation Officer, the archeologist began excavation of the
bones. These remains were in grave danger of washing out of the
cut bank where they had safely lain for an undetermined number
of years. If they had been lost to the water, their fascinating
mystery would have been left unexplored and lost forever.
Luckily, our archeologist was on hand to systematically uncover
the bones, saving them from destruction in a flooded, watery
grave. Careful study of the geomorphology (landforms and
processes that created them), sedimentology (the study of
sediments and their deposition), stra