- What's going on Coyote Pack?
Today we are on location in South Dakota.
We're going to visit the Mammoth Site.
Get ready, this is going to be a prehistoric adventure.
(majestic music)
(egg cracking)
(intense music)
(dinosaur squawk)
When the Brave Wilderness crew and I visited South Africa,
we had the chance to film our planet's
largest terrestrial mammal, the African elephant.
The enormity of these animals is absolutely staggering
and by getting dangerously close,
we witnessed their incredible power
and were quickly reminded why they command respect.
Later that summer, we visited Hot Springs, South Dakota
and had the chance to come face-to-face
with a prehistoric giant that dwarfed
even the most intimidating elephant, the mammoth.
And while the well-known woolly mammoth
is about the same size as an African elephant,
which is on average still a whopping 10 feet tall,
the lesser-known Columbian mammoth towers at over 13 feet.
Yes, they are now extinct.
But they're impressive skeletons
can be seen at the Mammoth Site,
a unique paleontological dig site
where anyone can go into the bonebed
and see this impressive fossil excavation up close.
Okay, we're heading into the bonebed.
(majestic music)
Whoa, it is big, there's a bunch of mammoth tusks.
You even have a jaw down here.
It looks like a lower jaw, you can see
those big, flat back molars, pieces of vertebrae,
leg bones, and all these mammoths
just piled down on top of each other.
That is so cool.
- [Mark] Now Coyote why are there
so many of the fossils here?
Like why are there so many mammoths?
- Well the thing that we learned in the intro video
is that actually this was a sinkhole
and the sides were made of shale.
They were very, very slippery so as
the mammoths would come down to take a drink,
they would slip and fall in.
And because the sides were so steep,
they couldn't climb back up.
Eventually they exhausted themselves.
They drowned and then all of those bodies,
mammoth after mammoth, just piled on top of each other.
The sediment filled in, and of course,
the fossils were formed.
- [Mark] It's not just mammoth,
- [Mark] Oh, getting a bird's-eye view up here.
- What's really cool about this dig site
is that they've left it here
as compared to completely exposing
all the bone and preparing it
and putting it in an exhibit,
they leave this as an open dig site.
So paleontologists are constantly working here
to reveal more of the bone.
Pretty sweet, isn't it?
This is the largest deposit of mammoth skeletons
found anywhere in United States.
So you can see all of this bone
that's exposed, now these bones are extremely fragile.
They are considered fossils,
but they're not as hard and petrified like dinosaur bones.
And these are much easier to dig up than dinosaur bones.
You can say it's easier, it's because this sediment
is a lot looser, but they're still incredibly fragile.
- [Mark] Well these are as old, right?
- No, we're talking hundreds of thousands of years or less
compared to millions of years old.
- [Mark] That's cool.
(mysterious music)
- [Mark] What you looking at Mario?
- This is amazing this is a mummified baby woolly mammoth.
And apparently it had lived around 38,000 years ago.
And what's really cool is in parts of the world,
like Russia, they're actually finding
these very intact preserved specimens.
There's actually hair, skin, and most importantly,
there's genetic material.
So one day scientists will be able
to actually track the genome of a woolly mammoth.
- This is just a plethora of mammoth information.
This is cool.
The actual mound was at these metal beams here.
So these steel beams that are running parallel
to each other right there,
that is how tall this mound of dirt was
before they began to excavate it down.
And originally it was bulldozers
that have plowed through here,
they found the first teeth and bones and said,
okay everybody stop with the big machinery,
we need to check out what the spot is.
And then they found this entire deposit of skeletons.
- Oh, all right.
- [Mark] It says you're allowed to touch it.
- And I'm not gonna get in trouble?
- [Mark] Well as long as you put it back.
- All right, check this out these are some,
basically, replicas of some mammoth bones.
Look at this, this is the mandible of a mammoth.
Check out those molars. - Oh yeah, well here
come over, bring it over here to show you, right there.
- Yep. - There it is.
Man. - Imagine that.
- This is as close and as deep
as you can get to the skeletons.
- [Mark] Look at the skull right there.
It's like perfectly placed.
- This is one of the coolest paleontological sites
I have ever been present on.
I wish that I could be in here helping to excavate
some of these bones.
And who knows, maybe we'll get to come back
at some point and actually help them
dig up some of these mammoths.
Wow, - Look at how big it is.
- Pretty cool, just taking one last moment
to admire Sinbad, this giant skeleton
of a Columbian mammoth.
Saw some pretty cool things today.
- Yeah, I mean the dig site's cool,
Sinbad is cool, the gift shop outside is also cool.
And you know what I was thinking?
- We had in there, check out some cool gifts
and we pick up some prizes for the Coyote Pack.
What do you think? - A little scavenger hunt.
What do you think Mar, are you in?
- Yeah! - All right guys,
let's visit the gift shop and see what we can find.
Oh, the gift shop, this is officially it.
They have all sorts of cool stuff in here.
There are books, there are stuffies,
there are sculptures, there even casted artifacts
from some of the discoveries that have been here
at the Mammoth Site.
I say we take 15 minutes to look around
and see what sort of cool things we can pick out
for the Coyote Pack, sound good?
- So each, you get a thing, you get a thing,
and I'll pick a thing.
And then everybody at home will get a chance win?
- Yes, so it'll be a collection of all three things
that ultimately they'll get to win.
- All right. - Awesome, so 15 minutes
on the clock, ready, three, two, one, go.
- All right guys I'm gonna find you
the coolest present that I possibly can.
There are a lot of good things in here,
so it's just a matter of coming across
the perfect item.
- You got some t-shirts, hats, oh hats are cool.
Oh, I like that hat, that's pretty cool.
What do you guys think, hmm, maybe, we'll think about it.
I think we need to canvass the whole gift shop
before we make our decision.
Let me see where else am I gonna go.
Let's go this way.
- Oh, check this out, this is a buffalo crossing sign
or would you guys want a mammoth crossing sign?
Mm, ooh there's a little mammoth crossing sign.
That's pretty good, ooh.
- All right check this out guys.
A cast of fossils, I mean, I feel like
this is what I'm looking for.
Look at that, that is really cool, hmm?
What do you guys think, I don't know.
I'm leaning toward that tooth.
- What are you doing? - Hey, you spying on me?
- Yeah, what you got there?
- He's spying on me guys.
What about that? - Oh man.
- Look at that tusk.
- Check this out, mammoths as far
as the eye can see.
- Looks like we go some cool diggers here.
Oh, dinosaurs, but it's a mammoth based video,
I think we're gonna try to stick with the mammoth stuff.
- Hey, hey, hey, hey. - Mario, did you pick it yet?
- I already got it. - That's what you gonna do?
All right, all right, what you can't,
when you pick one up it's decided.
- Oh really? - Yeah,
like you can't just horde a bunch of stuff.
- [Mario] But I'm getting dibs on this guy.
- There's no dibs. - What?
- You either make a choice, oh you put it back on the shelf.
C'mon, that how the rules are.
This is $3,500, is this fair?
Can I? - I don't think
that's in the budget. - It's not in the budget.
But it's so cool. - I bet we would be
the only people to have ever bought a $3,500 mammoth statue.
- I mean it is sweet. - It looks pretty heavy.
It'd be a lot to ship.
Let's keep searching.
All right guys, you know what,
I'm gonna go with the educational side of things.
I have a feeling that Mark and Mario
are going to be picking out toys and things like that.
I'm gonna get you guys a mammoth book.
I know, come on Coyote, you're getting us a book?
Yeah guys, I think a mammoth book is really cool.
There are some great ones here,
super educational content
coming from the Brave Wilderness Channel today.
- The moment of truth. - All right guys.
We are now out of the building,
which means we are out of the gift shop
and we've all picked out our items.
Now I don't know what Mark picked.
I also don't know what Mario picked.
I only know what I picked.
But it's time to reveal to the Coyote Pack
the grand prize collection of mammoth educational things.
Right? - Yeah well,
I mean cool stuff, mammoth cool stuff.
- Mammoth cool stuff, all right,
should we do you Mario first?
- [Mark] Let's have Mario go first.
- [Coyote] What have you got there buddy?
- All right, so I went a little traditional.
And I know when I was younger, well as I'm older as well,
I like just simple figures that really have
a good representation of the animals.
And this is a woolly mammoth figure.
- [Mark] Cool, here why don't you hold it out
in your hand here and I'll get a tight shot of it.
Let's see here, pretty nice, pretty nice.
Okay guys, there's cool thing number one.
All right Mario I'm gonna hand you the camera.
- All right Mark, what have you got in there?
- What's in the bag, what's in the bag?
So I think that was really cool,
but being that we were at a fossil site
I thought why not send the Coyote Pack,
- Whoa! - The lucky winner
home with a replica fossil. - Whoa!
- This is a Columbian mammoth tooth cast.
- Nice, I didn't even see those in there.
- Yeah they had a whole wall of 'em,
how'd you miss that?
- I don't know. - So this is like,
a total replica of one of the teeth found at this site.
So in a way, somebody's going to be taking home
a piece of the mammoths.
- [Mario] That's pretty cool.
So this is a top? - Yeah that's the top.
So that's this is the grinder.
- That's solid, that's cool.
- Pretty cool huh, I mean, try and top that Coyote.
- Okay the big moment, what's funny is that
I almost picked that mammoth figurine.
I did not see the teeth at all.
But what I decided to do is go totally educational
on this one and I picked out
some must-have mammoth reading material.
- Nice! - Check this out.
Not only do we have two cool cards,
one that is the Columbian mammoth
and one that is a woolly mammoth.
- Hold on, hold on, pause.
Mario you seein' the problem that I'm seeing?
- Yeah, that's more than one item.
- [Mark] You're only supposed to pick one thing.
- Well I, technically, it's one package.
It's a package of items.
They were all very, I guess, reasonably inexpensive
so I felt it needed to add up to something.
And that is this educational package.
So wait, wait, wait,
let me finish going through it.
So I've got the two mammoths cards.
You've got your Columbian mammoth and your woolly mammoth.
There's a woolly mammoth ahead crossing sign.
I call it a crossing sign,
but I guess it says woolly mammoth ahead.
Then there's also this cool book about mammoths.
It has some really interesting history.
- [Mark] Oh there's my tooth.
- [Coyote] Details about the tooth.
And then, of course, there is some pretty epic pictures
of Columbian mammoths in there.
And last but not least,
a completely comprehensive book
on Mammoths, Giants of the Ice Age.
So I would say that in total
we put together one colossal mammoth collection
of educational artifacts, toys, and literature
so you guys can all learn about these prehistoric giants.
Sounds pretty good right?
- Yeah. - Now I know everybody
wants to know how do you win
this mammoth educational package?
This giveaway is going to be a little different
because we're doing it on an Instagram.
Now we're going to take a photo
of all these prizes and post it on @BraveWilderness.
Make sure to head over to Instagram
and follow @BraveWilderness and then
write in the comments section,
tell us why you love mammoths
and how you plan to learn from all these educational items.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.
We'll see on the next location.
Being in the presence of so many fallen giants
is an indescribable experience
and even in their fossilized state
they still command a great deal of respect.
If you ever find yourself in Hot Springs, South Dakota
make sure to check out the Mammoth Site.
And if you want the chance to win
our colossal mammoth education package
head straight to our Instagram page
and follow @BraveWilderness.
For all the detailed instructions
check out the video description below.
If you love seeing mammoth fossils up-close,
be sure to go back and watch the episode
where I held the world's most famous dinosaur tooth.
And don't forget, subscribe and click the notification bell
so you can join me in the crew
on our next prehistoric adventure.
(animals roaring and howling)