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July 9, 2008

Ancient artifacts cling to river

By Tim Krohn

OLIVIA — For the past 10,000 years or so, the Minnesota River Valley has been home to some spectacular beasts — mastodon, woolly mammoth, giant beaver, giant short-faced bear.

And if you look close enough and are lucky, you’ll still find them.

“If you go when the river is really low and look on the sandbars, they’re just loaded with ancient bones,” said Tom Kalahar, who works for the Soil and Water Conservation District in Olivia and is an avid river rat.

Kalahar has found several prehistoric bison skulls. Their horns differ substantially from the American bison that roamed the plains in the past 2,000 years. (American bison horns curve up sharply while the ancient bison horns were horizontal.)

Even though the area was a well-traveled spot for American bison, they have never found the remains of one.

Del Wehrspann, who lives farther up river, just outside Montevideo, also has a collection, including ancient bison, many arrowheads and an assortment of stone tools.

The tools and stone points were found along the bluffs above the river.

“I found a lot along that high spot there,” said Wehrspann, pointing to a ridge and standing next to a flowing spring. “The Indians would have camped there in the summer. They were up in the breeze and above the bugs and they had fresh water right here. It would have been a good spot.”

Kalahar and Wehrspann said the animal bones are found most often after spring floods churn up the sandbars and banks of the river, dislodging the preserved bones and skulls from their resting spots of thousands of years.

They’ve found most of the bones from south of Montevideo down to Redwood Falls. Having so many in a fairly small area leads Kalahar to consider how they died.

“It appears some catastrophic event occurred that wiped them out. Maybe a massive flood.

“It’s fun looking for things. I think it amazes people that these are in the river. People just never get on the river and they don’t know what’s there,” Kalahar said.

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