Little Fox, Archaeologist 1.

Hello archaeological and blog world.
Little Fox here.  On my way from Colorado I received an important message from the museum.  They need some help tracking, excavating, and locating dinosaur remains.  Dinosaurs is one of my archaeological specialties so here I am.

I followed my GPS to the location of the dig that the museum needs help with.  I am at the Dinosaur National Monument.  Dinosaur National Monument has sites in Utah and Colorado.  Colorado has more scenery (Green River runs through it, lots more camping etc) and the Utah side has the dinosaur bones.  My work for the museum is on the Utah side.

It's a hot day today (post dated blog you know).  Temps are in the low 90s (32c for my international friends).  This archaeologist can handle it.

For some reason, I don't think this is the dinosaur dig they want my archaeological expertise at.

Dinosaur National Monument is here because they found a ton of dinosaur bones.  This story starts back in 1909 (okay, I know dinosaurs are much older than 1909)  when paleontologist Earl Douglass found the quarry where the bones were.  He was  collecting dinosaur bones for the Carnegie Museum.  Douglass' crews excavated thousands of bones and sent them to Carnegie Museum for display.  

1915 rolls around and Woodrow Wilson steps in and declares the quarry area where Douglass was excavating a National Monument so no more bones were allowed to be sent to the Carnegie 

Museum.  Hmm, sounds like the Carnegie might be a good place for this fox to visit.

I am not sure why they called me here.  Looks like these remains are pretty well preserved. 

It's a nice museum.  Still confused why I am here. 

I met with a staff member and they told me they needed my skills at the quarry.  It was a short hike to the quarry.  No challenge for this fox.  Along the hike I came across this sign.  Escalante was the first European who documented the area that is known at the Unitas Basin (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Northern Arizona).  One of the cool things about Escalante's journal is that it's surprisingly accurate for the time in the description of the Native American's they met, the land, and the geology. 

After a short hike I made it to the quarry building.  

Wait, I could have driven up here.  Why did I hike this trail in the heat.  Perhaps my roommate didn't listen too well to the staff at the visitor's center or perhaps my roommate wanted me to get a paws on feel of the monument by hiking.  

Okay, this is pretty cool.  There is literally a wall of bones inside.  This is the same quarry that Douglass and his team excavated for Carnegie was back in 1909.

Hard to see, but there are lots of dino bones here for my team (ie me and my roommate) to document for the museum. 

Time for this archaeologist to get to work.