Category: StreetSmartNaturalist

Wow, with all of the press on the Seattle mammoth, you’d think that no one had ever seen a mammoth before. Over the past week or so, news organizations from around the world (NPR, CNN, ABC, Fox, The Guardian, to name a few) have devoted an amazing amount information to our city’s newest media star.

It does make me wonder why. Part of it has to do with misunderstanding. I talked to one of the Burke Museum’s researchers who told me that friends kept asking him about the dinosaur that the museum was unearthing. (Washington is one of the few states where dinosaurs have never been found.) Despite what some people seem to think, mammoths are not dinosaurs, although the extinct pachyderms are very big and charismatic. Mammoths may be one of the few extinct beasts that rival dinosaurs for popularity. Ironically, the museum is supposedly going to put the tusk on display at its annual Dinosaur Day, Saturday, March 8.

A second part is that mammoths have become much more famous through the Ice Age movies, thus when the remains of one, even if it’s just a small percentage of the body, are found, people get excited. There was also the compelling story of the children from Bright Horizons Child Care cheering on the dig with such endearing signs as “Woolly U Be My Valentine.” There are few news items more compelling than tots and tusks.

And finally, Seattleites and the media that follow our fair city have been prepared for subterranean stories, following the brouhaha over Bertha and her lack of movement. Bertha’s troubles have already helped us to learn more about the city’s early history. The mammoth was simply pushing the history deeper into the past. I do hope that the interest in those stories will continue, as many more are waiting to be discovered and told.

I also wanted to point out a nifty blog posting, put up by Dave DeMar, a PhD student in paleontology at the University of Washington. Dave provides some great first hand accounts of the dig. Another Burke researcher I spoke with noted that the dig went amazing well, especially with so many people watching. It speaks highly of the Burke team, as well as the contractors (particularly the person who hit the tusk with his backhoe and recognized that it was something important enough to stop the dig) and those who owned the land. Let’s hope that they inspire others.

Seattle’s subterranean history has become all the rage of late. From mammoths to Bertha, the stories keep cropping up. Since events seem to happen in threes, it makes me wonder what else is lurking just beneath the surface: an earthquake, a sinkhole (like the one that swallowed Corvettes in Kentucky), or more shoes wrapped in Yiddish newspapers? This is the issue raised by the always astute Knute Berger, in a story in Crosscut titled “Could the Bertha boondoggle be a local history boon?”

Berger wonders whether Bertha’s stoppage will lead to new revelations about the city’s history. The machine stopped at an ideal spot, just west of where the city started, and where much debris (or what others call archaeology) awaits discovery. No one expects any Pompeii-like discoveries but by unearthing artifacts such as bottles, shoes, combs, or glasses we start to “paint a more human, intimate picture of the lives people led,” writes Berger.

As someone who is interested in history, I have been asked many times why we should care about the past? For me, it boils down to two reasons. The first is that it provides me a deeper connection to my home and to the people who lived here. As we dig up these artifacts and find items such as a Rainier beer bottle, baby formula, or bottled water imported into Seattle in the late 1800s from Alaska, it’s hard to think that I am so different from those who lived here before. We came here for many reasons and we do many different things but in the end we are really not that different, in wanting a place to live, food to eat, water (or beer) to drink, friends to share our lives with.

The second is that knowing the past of the place I live, makes it more interesting to live here. It gives me a fuller and happier life. This may sound like a particularly nerdy platitude but I know I am not alone in holding this view. Consider how often the subject of Seattle’s past has come up in recent weeks and how often you and your friends have discussed what lies beneath. I really do think that there is a hunger for these stories.

I agree with Berger and hope that those who are trying to fix Bertha, take the opportunity to do some good archaeology on the way down to fixing her. It’s the least they can do and could provide a silver lining for what many consider to be a pretty ugly mess.