Hebior     Site
It was during the excavation of the Schaefer site that the property owner Franklin Schaefer was approached by his neighbor, John Hebior.  Mr. Hebior had uncovered a large bone many years ago and turned it over to Franklin Schaefer.  Mr. Schaefer handed the bone to Joyce who in turn handed it to Overstreet.  Overstreet, with the able assistance of Dave Wasion excavated the Hebior Mammoth in 1994.  Like the Schaefer Mammoth, the Hebior Mammoth was disarticulated and possessed the cut marks and stone tools that led to the conclusion that it too was butchered by humans.  Subsequent testing of the purified mammoth bone collagen produced dates of 12,480 +/- 60 BP, 12,590 +/-50 BP, and 12,520+/-BP.

The methodology employed in the excavation of the Schaefer and Hebior mammoth sites by professional archaeologists was exemplary, and has not been challenged.  On the contrary, the archaeological community has embraced these sites as evidenced by publications such as the November/December 1999 issue of Archaeology, and reference to these sites in the new book, Bones, Boats and Bison by E. James Dixon.

Further evidence of the acceptance of the Schaefer and Hebior sites as confirmed pre-Clovis came from many speakers at the Clovis and Beyond Conference held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in October 1999.

The future scientific study of the Hebior mammoth remains somewhat in limbo as the original bones, stone tools, site samples, copies of the maps and diagrams, laboratory documentation, X-rays, videos, still photos, and of special importance, the actual bones with butchering marks, plus a complete fiberglass replica of the Hebior mammoth.  All of this was put on the auction block on May 31st, 1998 at Butterfield & Butterfield auction house with an opening bid of $140,000.  Luckily for the scientific community, it did not achieve it's opening bid price.  According to a Kenosha News article, the last known whereabouts of the bones are a storage facility in Milwaukee WI.  We can only hope that they are no longer for sale to the highest bidder and will not go into a private collection, but be available for future scientific research.
 
The Hebior Mammoth is on display at the Kenosha County Museum.

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©2000 - 2004 Butterbrodt/Joyce
 
 
 
 

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