• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header left navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Endorsements
  • Books
    • Nicky Matthews Mystery Series
    • De-Extinct Zoo Series
    • The Lies Mystery Series
    • Demystifying the Beats
  • Periodic Table of Death … and Mystery
  • Contact
  • Blog
Carol Potenza

Carol Potenza

New Mexico Mysteries

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Goodreads
  • Spotify
Carol Potenza's website header

Provenance Cone Rubbing Rocks

By Carol Potenza | February 23, 2020 | Category: Genetics And ScienceTag: Columbian Mammoths, Mammoth rubs, Pleistocene Megafauna

Close your eyes.

Imagine lush, grassy plains dotted with playas rolling to distant blue mountains west and south. Other than a few crusty black lava flows, the only interruption is a reddish cone-shaped mountain, its rocky sides coated with yellow-green lichen. It’s cold, even though it’s early summer, the skies covered in heavy clouds scudding eastward over a range of jagged peaks just visible on the horizon.

Provenance Cone, the Florida Mountains to the west. Can you find the cows?

A bugle sounds, a trumpeting that starts as a low rumble and shudders through your chest before it rises and echoes. It originates from a herd of huge lumpish-brown animals—you mistake them for elephants at first—wallowing in the shallow pools of muddy water that surround the small mountain. Young ones, the size of horses, are playing and splashing, while adults graze on the thick grasses and sedges that cover the ground.

Jabiru birds fly past a herd of Columbian Mammoths as they make their way across a river delta.

But these animals are different. Their foreheads are domed, ears small. Their tusks are long and curved, and their bodies are covered in hair—shaggy, and now, caked in mud. Not elephants, but Mammuthus columbi—Columbian mammoths—Pleistocene megafauna that went extinct around ten thousand years ago. The mammoths you see in your imagination live in the southwestern plains of what will one day become New Mexico.

Rubbing rock area, Provenance Cone to the east

Led by the matriarch, animals from the herd are wandering to a smaller jumble of rocks behind the cone-shaped mountain. Muddy grit coats their bodies, and they scratch themselves along shoulder-high rocks, sluffing off insects and parasites and the final patches of a heavy winter fur. There is even a table rock one animal is standing over to rub her belly and ‘elbows’. And over the ages, the sharp edges of the rubbing rocks become so smooth, they gleam in the sun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X43Pr0htq9s

Table rock rubbed smooth on top. View the linked You Tube video to see how it was used.

If you want to actually visit and touch the rubbing rocks, you can. They are southeast of the Akela Flats (exit 102) off of I-10 in southern New Mexico. Take a robust vehicle because of the rough dirt roads, and go during the winter because the cone-shaped mountain has a nick-name: Rattlesnake Peak. Bring water, your camera, and your imagination, and picture those amazing animals. If I had a time machine, I would go back and see them in real life. How about you?

Previous Post:Pick Your Poison
Next Post:Helium and the Periodic Table of DEATHHelium, Balloons, and the Periodic Table of Death

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kathleen Buckley

    August 24, 2022 at 5:41 pm

    What a fascinating post! I didn’t know this and I’m sure my housemate who is a paleontology fan didn’t, either.

    Reply
    • Carol Potenza

      August 26, 2022 at 10:15 am

      I can highly recommend going, IF you have a four-wheel drive. I would also suggest going in winter, because the rocky hill by the rubbing rocks is infested with rattlesnakes. And you’ll want to explore the hill because there are a bunch of petroglyphs.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SIGN UP FOR CAROL’S NEWSLETTER

And get her latest mystery, “Unmasked: A De-Extinct Zoo Mystery” completely FREE!

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • For Book Clubs
  • Extras
  • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Sign up for Carol’s Newsletter

When you sign up, you’ll receive Carol’s latest mystery, “Unmasked: A De-Extinct Zoo Mystery” completely FREE!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Goodreads
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • For Book Clubs
  • Extras
  • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions

Other Books by Carol Potenza

Nicky Matthews Mysteries

Hearts of the Missing: A Mystery

Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Apple Books
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Barnes and Noble Nook
Buy from Books-A-Million
Buy from IndieBound
Buy from Kobo
Abe Books
BookWorks
COAS Books
Collected Works Bookstore
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Hearts of the Missing: A Mystery
Buy now!
Hearts of the Missing: A Mystery

The Third Warrior

Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Apple Books
Buy from Barnes and Noble
Buy from Barnes and Noble Nook
Buy from Google Play
Buy from Kobo
Abe Books
Booktopia
Fantastic Fiction
The Third Warrior
Buy now!
The Third Warrior

Spirit Daughters

Buy This Book Online
Multiple Buy Links - You Choose!
Buy from Amazon
Buy from GoodReads
Buy from Book Depository
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Barnes and Noble Nook
Buy from Kobo
Spirit Daughters
Buy now!
Spirit Daughters
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Goodreads

Copyright © 2022 · Carol Potenza All Rights Reserved.
Website by Stormhill Media