The South Riding RV Travels

714

9th September 2012 - Tempe AZ - Arizona Museum of Natural History

Arizona is very dry but much of it was once under water. Both create a good environment for finding fossils. The Arizona museum has quite a collection of dinosaur models and is very popular with children. This is a mastodon which browsed on branches whereas mammoths ate grass.
The differences can be seen by comparing them with this Columbian Mammoth which arrived in North America between 1.6 and 1.3 million years ago.
This is a pterosaur which was born able to fly and grew in size afterwards. Birds and bats are not able to fly at birth and complete most of their growth before flying.
This is a protoceratops which actually came from Mongolia. Smaller examples have been found in North America. It is one of the commonest dinosaurs found in fossil bearing rocks from the cretaceous period.
This is an iguanadon from the same period and again is from Mongolia. But smaller ones are found in Arizona.
There are fragments of figures and pottery from all over the South West. These are from the Teotihuacán classic period (AD 400-750).
Although most of the figures are small some are much larger stone carvings. This is larger than life.
This is a photo of an archaeological mound site in Mesa which dates back to the Hohokam Indians who did a lot of canal building in the Salt River basin just east of Phoenix and before the arrival of Europeans.
The Hohokam are thought to have been the most advanced early civilisation in the US dating from 300 BC to 1350 AD. This is a representation of a house in a pit in which they lived.
There is a whole wall of pottery types. These are Acoma designs. There are also examples of Anasazi styles. These were taken up by the Hopi.
These are Hohokam bowls from around 900 AD.
These are O'odham baskets from the 1900s. They are modern examples of the bowls which the Hohokam wove a thousand years before.
Many minerals are found in the area. Most of these geodes are of quartz.
A lot of the museum is aimed at children and there is a pseudo mine with low lighting to show the candle lighting which was used.
There is also  part of the original Tempe jail where you can lock up the kids.
I preferred the model railway. There were a lot of mineral railways in the region.
An odd item was the armour typical of that worn by the Spanish invaders who first appeared in this area.
Equally interesting is the cow hand. Surprisingly most of the early cowboys here were free blacks. One wonders how the Texans then banned blacks from living in the state. Even today there is friction in Arizona with the original Mexican families who lived here when Mexico ruled the area.
One of the most popular places is the 'gold mine' where you can pan for 'gold', something which appeals to both young and old.