Along the riverbank.Before ferryboats and river towns, mammoths, mastodons, tapirs, and other prehistoric creatures roamed the land now carved by the Mighty Mississippi. Remnants of these Ice Age mammals compose the newest exhibit at the Tunica tunica /tu·ni·ca/ (too´ni-kah) pl. tu´nicae [L.] a tunic; in anatomy, a general term for a membrane or other structure covering or lining a body part or organ. RiverPark's Mississippi River Mississippi River River, central U.S. It rises at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and flows south, meeting its major tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio rivers, about halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Museum and will offer a glimpse of the state's prehistoric past until late September. The collection of relics relics, part of the body of a saint or a thing closely connected with the saint in life. In traditional Christian belief they have had great importance, and miracles have often been associated with them. features the tusk tip of a mammoth, a mastodon mastodon (măs`tədŏn'), name for a number of prehistoric mammals of the extinct genus Mammut, from which modern elephants are believed to have developed. The earliest known forms lived in the Oligocene epoch in Africa. tooth, the skull of a bison, and the lower jaw of a tapir, a distant relative of the horse. John Connaway, a professional archeologist and amateur paleontologist, spent 20 years with a team collecting the vertebrate vertebrate, any animal having a backbone or spinal column. Verbrates can be traced back to the Silurian period. In the adults of nearly all forms the backbone consists of a series of vertebrae. All vertebrates belong to the subphylum Vertebrata of the phylum Chordata. fossils in riverbed sediment. "The Mississippi River has revealed some incredible clues from the ancient mammals who roamed this region approximately 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago," said Jeriene Rhodes, director of the RiverPark. "You can look at these bones and imagine the landscape where these creatures lived." The fossils, which were found in an area from Richardson's Landing north of Memphis to Greenville, are part of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum's permanent collection. For more information, call 866/51-RIVER or 662/357-0050 or see www.tunicariverpark.com. |
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