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By KEN WHITE REVIEW-JOURNAL ? W - ^ l ortyyearsago, ? ? ? archaeologists, | W paleontologists and H geologists from JLm around the Southwest converged on Las Vegas, a seem ingly unlikely place to find evidence of early mankind in North America. But though it’s hard to tell by looking at it today, the Las Vegas Valley once was an oasis o f lakes and rivers, the land teem ing with now-extinct mammals and man. Scientists thought that man m ay have been in the area 28.000 years b.p. (before present), and cam e with their bulldozers and scrapers to find evidence supporting that theory. A new exhibit, “The B ig Dig: The Tule Springs Expedition 1962-1963,” opening Saturday at the Nevada State Museum & H istorical Society, gives a close-up view of that era with an array of photographs of the “B ig D ig” and som e artifacts, including the teeth, jawbone and tusk of a Columbian mammoth, and ancient human tools. The exhibit opens with “Re-Visit the Big D ig,” a program starting at 2 p.m. featuring several m em bers of the original expedition team including project director Richard Shutler, Jr., geologist C. Vance H aynes and archaeologists Robert Orlins and M argaret Lyneis. Others scheduled to attend include Nevada anthropologists Richard H. Brooks and Donald R. TUohy, senior field assistants on the project. Don White and Mark Rosenzweig of the Ih le Springs Preservation Committee also w ill attend the event. Although the scientists cam e away with many artifacts, carbon dating of the tim e was unable to conclusively prove they dated to 28,000 b.p. The best the UCLA radiocarbon lab could com e up with was 11,000 to 13.000 years b.p. Las Vegas Review-Journal what: "The Big Dig: The Tule Springs Expedition 1962-1963"" when: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily where: Nevada State Museum & Historical Society, 700 Twin Lakes Drive tickets: $2 (486-5205) Land Minds “But they got a lot of information from the dig,” says Thomas R. Dyer, the museum’s exhibits manager. “It was still a m arvelous feat. It was the first tim e archaeologists had used bulldozers and scrapers to do archaeology.” The bulldozers dug 7,000 feet of trenches in an effort to uncover artifacts, and moved 1,000 tons of earth. The dig “attracted a lot of attention nationally,” Dyer says. “There w ere a lot of prominent archaeologists and geologists involved.” The team, living in tents, spent Septem ber 1962 through January 1963 atth e TUle Wes Southerland, exhibit preparator for the Nevada State Museum & Historical Society, above, works on a jaw bone and tusk on display in the "Big Dig" exhibit Mammoth teeth, left were recovered from the dig on the Gilcrease ranch near Tule Springs. Springs site, often facing 117-degree heat in late summer and extrem e cold at night by the end of the dig. The 125 color photographs in the exhibit w ere taken by National Geographic photographer B ill Belknap. M ost of the artifacts were sent to the state museum in Carson City, while the mammoth bones were sent to the U niversity of Califom ia-Berkeley. Some of the bones were found on a nearby ranch owned by William G ilcrease, land that is now the site of the G ilcrease Bird Sanctuary. The 1962--63 project was the fourth in the area. The first GARY THOMPSON/REVIEW-JOURNAL expedition, in January 1933, was headed by M.R. Harrington of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. Harrington cam e to the Thle Springs site first discovered in early 1933 by Fenley Hunter of the American Museum of Natural H istory in New York City. Hunter had com e upon an ash bed in a canyon wall that held the bones of Pleistocene era animals and what appeared to be man-made tools. Harrington cam e back with a team from the Southwest Museum in May 1955 for the second Tlile Springs expedition, and the third expedition by the Southwest Museum arrived in spring 1956. But the 1962-’63 expedition was the largest of the four. Even today, more artifacts are being found. “I hear stories of people finding mammoth bones in their back yard,” D yer says. “The dig is a really important story and it’s really important to preserve these things because of the growth of the Valley: In and of itself it’s interesting, but it can make people aware of the importance of preservation.” UT Lecture eyes Lincoln's role in statehood The Civil War was raging and Abraham Lincoln was president when Nevada becam e a state. How did Lincoln affect Nevada’s quest for statehood and how do his oft-quoted words relate to our state? Bring your sack lunch to the jury selection room at the Lloyd D. George United States Courthouse, 333 Las Vegas Blvd. South, on Nov. 15 from noon to 1 p.m. and listen to Dr. M ichael Green discuss “Mr. Lincoln and Nevada,” the next program in the Downtown Cultural Series. Light refreshm ents are also available. Adm ission is free. Green, a history professor at Community College of Southern Nevada, earned his doctorate in history from Columbia University, and his dissertation on the Republican party during the Civil War w ill be published next year by Fordham U niversity Press. He is editor and interview er for “A Liberal Conscience: Ralph Denton, Nevadan” and co-editor o f “Nevada Readings and Perspectives.” H is column “Backstory” appears weekly in the Las Vegas M ercury and “Las Vegas H istory” appears monthly in the Senior Press. A frequent speaker on local history, Green also w rites Inside the Beltway” and Books” colum ns for Nevada’s Washington Watch newsletter. The Downtown Cultural Series is presented by the Cultural A ffairs D ivision of the city of Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services. « u aap Friday, November 8,2002 • 49