This page contains a gallery of photos from our excavations at Hudson-Meng
Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version of each image
Year: | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1998 | 1999 |
For a brief description of each season's work at the Hudson-Meng site, click here.
White River Badlands about 2 km north of Hudson-Meng.
South Trench excavation locality, view to south from dense bone to edge of bonebed.
Temporary cover over South Trench excavation, view to west.
Scattered, weathered, dry-bone fractured bones near south edge of bonebed. Femur may have trampling break.
Dave Rapson documenting northern portions of South Trench bone.
Dry bone fractured femur above mandibles and maxillary teeth group.
One of the 1992 field teams (Earthwatch and students).
Afternoon thundershowers are common. View from site area, waterscreening area in foreground.
Modern, comparative cranium held above fragmentary, truncated cranial for Southeast Block excavation locality.
Excavations of Southeast Block locality
Earthwatch volunteer using Plexiglas grid to help draw bones on map.
Dave Rapson documenting bones in Southeast Block locality.
Field trip to Wind Cave National Park -- live bison.
In 1992 we began using Sokkia EDM's for all excavation and survey proveniencing.
The Southeast Block locality was selected in order to examine the condition of bones in low-density, dispersed areas of the bonebed.
Weathered and carnivore damaged bison humerus.
Articulated group of lumbar vertebrae (top) and modern comparative specimen (bottom).
Modern bison cranium held next to fragmentary cranium from the Southeast Block.
The 1993 UNL, CSU and Forest Service Crew
Hudson-Meng site area. The bonebed was discovered during construction of the stockpond to the east of the site.
In 1993 heavy equipment was used to remove Holocene sediments from 2 large trenches to the west and southwest of the original Agenbroad excavation areas (view to west from National Register Marker).
Crews working to clean the trench walls, which were stepped for safety (view to east)
The New Trench locality after initial face cleaning.
The New Trench to the left and the West Trench locality to the right of the photo (view to west).
Field school students from the University of Nebraska and Colorado State University, together with a small paid crew work in the New Trench.
One of the goals of deep trenching was to examine the base of the "cliff" to the west of the bonebed. This photo shows the gently sloping soil surface that was on covered. At the time the bison died, there was no cliff to the west of the bonebed.
Unlike other years, the 1993 excavations were in dispersed test units along the two trenches rather than as block excavations within the bonebed.
The test units were placed along the length of each trench to trace the bonebed and associated paleosol.
Gene Kelly and Ellen Wohl from CSU working on the north profile of the West Trench.
Dining facilities were memorable, if not pleasant.
Dave Rapson giving an overview of using field data forms
North Bone area - view to the south.
Camp area as seen from the bonebed.
Kathy Russell in field kitchen.
Evening discussions.
Nearly completely articulated bison skeleton (missing some lumbar and thoracic vertebrae) and other articulated limb segments from the North Bone locality.
Fully articulated front of bison from North Block. Note that the cranium, although highly fragmented is present.
Chad Jones cleaning bonebed for photos.
View to north along west wall excavation areas.
Excavations of North Bone locality, view to south.
Media day at Hudson-Meng.
Superpositioning of impact fractured femur (upper right) above main bonebed.
Limited facilities.
Overview of the excavation complex with Weatherport structures over each of main excavation localities.
Excavation in one of the highly fragmented burned areas.
Nicole Waguespack casting a fragmentary cranium.
Rusty Greaves giving a site tour.
Bonebed enclosure, view to the southeast.
Bonebed enclosure in the fog, view to west.
Uncovering a 2x2 meter area of bone that had been excavated in the 1970s and reburied.
Evening excavations inside the bonebed enclosure.
Dr. Alexander K. Krup'anko (Far Eastern State University, Vladivostok) supervising excavations
Chris Nicholson cleaning the floor of bonebed enclosure.
Wolf Butte survey.
Wolf Butte survey with EDM set on primary control point.
Excavations continued to uncover bone inside the bonebed
enclosure. The lighter colored bone was exposed in 1998.
Doug Stephens talking to a large tour group while CSU field
school students excavate at Hudson-Meng.
Several long-term taphonomic
studies were begun in 1999. Here a defleshed bison hindleg is shown on a badlands slope
setting.
CSU graduate student Nancy
Barrickman using GPS as part of actualistic taphonomic study of micro-setting differences
in bone surface modification.
CSU student Jeremy Lawson and UNL student Jesse Adams
recording lithic raw material variation in surface cobble beds.
During 1999 we began using
Sokkia Locus GPS units for survey and testing projects.
GPS units on the
initialization bar at site 25SX348.
Survey crew checking
transect spacing during survey of a 2.5 ha sample unit.
After survey units are walked
and surface items flagged, a mapping crew used the Sokkia Locus GPS to record all surface
item's UTM coordinates.
Robert Walker mapping in the
badlands.
At one site we began
surface documentation with a sample crawling survey with crew spaced at 10 cm apart.
We then surveyed a larger
area of the same site using a walking 70 cm transect spacing and again mapped and
documented all of the surface artifacts encountered using GPS and UTM coordinates.
After the two levels
of surface survey (crawling at 10cm and walking at 70cm), we then did surface testing.
Step trench at a
location where 1998 Forest Service survey had found a Hell Gap point.
Paleoindian surface find (Hell Gap point).
Testing at this location uncovered a well developed, possibly early Holocene paleosol at 3
m below the present ground surface.
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