John Day Fossil Beds A Landscape of Memory, Uncovered

There is a special place on earth that lies within the boundaries of Oregon. As so aptly put in a recent Oregon newspaper article, the place was described as a landscape of memory". The name of this special place is the John Day Fossil Beds. Within these beds of earth are great numbers of well-preserved fossils of remarkable diversity, spanning over 40 million years of the current "Age of Mammals". Yet it was only within the last 135 years that any serious study of the ancient "memory" took place, and only since 1974 that a park was authorized by Congress to protect this special landscape — and learn from it.

People have been finding fossils for at least 30,000 years. Ice Age people made them into necklaces, the Chinese use them to ward off silverfish, Romans used them to cure snake bites and promise success in battle. Magical beliefs about fossils became common world-wide and "tall-tales" about the origin of fossils abounded; a fossil elephant skull on Sicily became the head of a dead Cyclops; fossil sharks teeth, stone tongues that fell to earth during an eclipse; ammonites, snakes turned to stone by a saint; and giant cave bear fossils, the remains of mythical dragons. A fanciful tale that lasted into the 1700's had Earth as a "creative force" which tried to make copies of living things in the form of rock. By the 1800's, as interest in the earth sciences grew, more and more people were studying and realizing the true origins of fossils. Few could predict the role that fossils would have in future debates about the diversity of life.

The year was 1859. The territory of Oregon became a state - a free state. A firestorm of controversy was gaining momentum even as the war between North and South escalated in America. That same year, John Brown's bloody raid into Virginia, to free the slaves, perhaps divided the nation irrevocably. Later, many considered the raid the first battle of the Civil War. Now, the United States was firmly divided and so was the world, but on another issue.

A firestorm of controversey was gaining momentum, even as the conflict between North and South escalated into war in America. The controversy centered on a book recently published in 1859 by a British biologist, his name, Charles Darwin. His book, On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, respectfully presented a radical biological theory that shook the foundations of Victorian England. For many, the book contradicted the biblical version of creation and ideas of constancy in life and the world. Darwin's theory on evolution, that new species of plants and animals arise from old in a changing, evolving, world, was being argued in the halls of learning worldwide. As scientists, theologians, and lay-people worldwide advocated their viewpoints, many realized the need for more evidence, especially in regards to evidence of prehistoric life - fossil evidence.

On the frontiers of eastern Oregon the controversy Darwin sparked was of little concern. Gold was news! In 1862 gold was struck in Canyon City at the head of the John Day Valley. Soon after, U.S. Cavalry patrols to the mines were begun to guard ore shipments being shipped to The Dalles, a bustling town in Oregon along the banks of the Columbia River. The soldiers also guarded new settlers, and escorted supplies to the miners. Fear of attacks by American Indian tribes and southern sympathizers in the new state of Oregon was high. As it turned out, the military patrols proved largely uneventful. Out of boredom and curiosity, many of the horse soldiers collected items of geologic interest along the trail, such as fossils.

During this time, at The Dalles, a Congregational Minister by the name of Thomas Condon received fossil specimens from cavalry troops returning to the town from the gold fields of eastern Oregon. Condon, both a minister and avid naturalist, was the first to recognize the significance of the fossilized shells, teeth and bones that the soldiers had picked up along the way. Joining army escorts to the Canyon City gold fields, Condon searched the John Day Valley for riches of another kind. Oregon gold for the Union might decide the Civil War. In another vein, Oregon fossils for science might help scientists decide Darwin's evolution controversy.

Daring passage through Picture Gorge in the John Day Valley, Condon discovered a lost world of colorful eroded gullies and pinnacles. Here was the wealth of fossils he was seeking. Over the next few years, when he could find time from his ministerial duties, Condon made trips to the John Day country collecting and studying fossils and mapping the fossil beds, as he said, "... with a rifle in one hand and my pick in the other." His enthusiastic interest in the prehistory of eastern Oregon spread with each fossil display and lecture he conducted back at The Dalles. His personal support of Darwin's controversial theory grew with each bit of evidence he dug up from the hills, Reverend Condon seeing little conflict with the teachings he interpreted from the bible.

Condon's extensive work was soon to be discovered back "east" as he eagerly shared his fossil finds and knowledge with prominent east coast scientists in the hopes of learning more from them. As he wrote to a New York scientist, justifying a 50 pound shipment of fossils, "My reasons for this course were these: I knew how lively an interest these fossils awakened in my own mind and inferred that if the interest you felt in such things was as much greater, as your knowledge of their connection with science was greater than mine, you ought to have them spread before you at once."

By the 1870's Condon had awakened a great interest. The Oregon gold rush was soon followed by an Oregon fossil rush! The next two decades were to see a parade of fossil expeditions across the still dangerous frontier territory of eastern Oregon. Many prominent paleontologists led parties that chipped rock and prepared fossils for shipment back east - such men as; America's first Professor of Paleontology, Othniel C. Marsh of Yale University's Peabody Museum; Edward Drinker Cope, for the University of Pennsylvania's Academy of Natural Sciences; and William Berryman Scott of Princeton University.

One prominent fossil-hunter, Charles Sternberg, wrote in 1877 of the John Day Fossil Beds, "I soon found that all the ground in the fossil beds which was easy to get at had been gone over. Here and there we would run across a pile of broken bones and a hole from which a skull had been taken. When I asked Bill what he had meant by leaving the bones of the skeleton behind, he answered, "We were only looking for heads, though we sometimes saved knucks and jints." This accounts for the scarcity of skeletons among the first collections made. I saw to it that my party should care for every bone discovered."

As to Sternberg's reason for prospecting the John Day Fossil Beds, "What is it that urges a man to risk his life in the precipitous fossil beds? I can answer only for myself, but with me there are two motives, the desire to add to human knowledge, which has been the great motive of my life, and the hunting instinct, which is deeply planted in my heart. Not the desire to destroy life, but to see it — It is thus that I love creatures of other ages, and that I want to become acquainted with them in their natural environments. They are never dead to me; my imagination breathes life into "the valley of dry bones," and not only do the living forms of the animals stand before me, but the countries which they inhabited rise for me through the mists of the ages."

As the amount of gold mined in Eastern Oregon dwindled in the late 1800's, so too did the tons of previous fossil shipments to principle museums back east — The Smithsonian — New York's American Museum of Natural History — Yale's Peabody Museum — and others. Filled museum shelves, and diminishing interest in Oregon's prehistory, was to finally slow the fossil rush in the John Day country. The attention of eastern paleontologists focused elsewhere.

By the turn of the century Darwin's theory of biological evolution was still a hot topic, particularly between large segments of the religious and scientific communities. After forty years, the theory had been accepted as reasonable by the world's scientific community, as more and more scientists focused upon and studied the earth's natural environments and fossil record. The additional evidence that had been gathered since 1859, and added to Darwin's studies, seemed to support the theory. Yet as the support grew, it did not help ease the controversy that some scientists played politic. They purposely expanded the scope of the theory, trying to undermine the doctrines and purpose of religion, or even justifying Darwin's concept of "the survival of the fittest" as the preferred tenet for modern society. World-wide, scientists realized that more evidence was still needed to test and verify aspects of the original theory, and the John Day Fossil Beds would continue to serve as a source of evidence, right up to this day.

As the new century evolved, scientists and Oregonians alike sensed the importance of the now well-known fossil beds. A local newspaper article, from 1916*, states, "These beds are among the most prolific in rare relics of pre-historic days. They have, to the store of scientific research, added much of value and of interest. In addition to their value to the scientist they are a marvel to the tourist for their picturesque beauty is worth much. With the opening of travel this way steps should be taken to preserve and conserve these resting places of pre-historic life — It might be well for the government to withhold the lands from entry and establish here a national park — As time goes on the value of these beds will be recognized." Yet even at that time people could not realize the scientific magnitude and importance the John Day Fossil Beds would take on in later years.

In 1899, John C. Merriam, proposed the first University of California expedition to the John Day Fossil Beds. Collections of John Day fossils graced the major eastern universities and had found their way abroad, yet aside from some of Thomas Condon's specimens at the University of Oregon, none existed in museums in the West. Professor Merriam was to lead several expeditions into eastern Oregon fossil areas during the first three decades of the 1900's. Merriam hoped to collect more than fossilized bones. He wanted information about the rocks that contained them, as well as, a collection of the present-day plants and animals of the area.

Merriam's extensive fossil study and systematic classification of the fossil-bearing formations provided a much clearer picture of the region's prehistory, firmly establishing the John Day Fossil Beds as part of the chapter in the book of life entitled "The Age of Mammals." As he once wrote, "Life through the ages, under the guidance of whatever power there is behind nature, had tended to link the element of continuity — with change, development, and progress."

With the research and data from each succeeding paleontologist, the understanding of the importance and magnitude of the John Day Fossil Beds expanded. New fossil prospecting techniques and analysis helped scientists understand aspects of the fossil beds they previously overlooked, or they were unaware of. As a place for understanding prehistoric life and evolutionary concepts the fossil beds were fast becoming an encyclopedia of knowledge.

During the 1920's, 30's, and 40's, the work of paleobotanist, Ralph W. Chaney, provided another first. Over several expeditions his fossil hunting teams scoured the hills of eastern Oregon seeking plant fossils. On one trip to Leaf Fossil Hill, adjoining the Painted Hills near Mitchell, Oregon, they collected over 26,000 specimens. In addition to his discovery of many new species of plant fossils of the John Day region, Chaney was the very first, anywhere, to take the extensive research data collected on plant fossil populations and describe various plant environments, or quantitative paleoecology, of prehistoric life.

Taking it a step further Chaney used the respected concept, "The present is the key to the past." This is a basic scientific assumption, supported by limited but growing evidence, that the way the world works today — geologic processes — life processes — chemical processes — and physics — in the past, were essentially the same or very similar to what they are today.

Chaney asserted that the various plant environments he envisioned from the John Day fossil record, and supporting geologic evidence, were probably caused by varied climates. Each type of prehistoric plant environment he identified would have had a probable and conceivable "climate" that allowed the prehistoric plant populations to grow. Comparison to modern plant populations living in climates world-wide was the key.

Chaney identified a few predominant prehistoric environments from the John Day fossil and geologic record. Around 50 million years ago much of the Pacific Northwest region was covered by a moist near-tropical forest subject to 100 inches of rain per year, with little seasonal change and a warm climate. Then change, the regional climate becoming cooler and dryer over time until, 30 million years ago, rainfall was about 40 inches per year and a hardwood, deciduous forest filled the landscape. Seasonality became more pronounced. As the climate became still cooler and dryer, inland, forested areas receded and grasslands filled open areas. Woodland-grassland savannahs covered the terrain 15 million years ago, and by 7 million years ago grasslands dominated the plant world of the region east of the Cascade Mountains.

Today, a near-desert environment, averaging 14 inches of annual rainfall, greets the visitor to eastern Oregon. The transition and trend of change in the past climates and plant environments has been toward dryer, cooler, and more seasonal extremes in temperature, but this is no guarantee of future trends. It does demonstrate the possibilities.

Chaney wrote in 1948, "Unless we believe that our continents and mountain ranges are now fixed, never to be altered, and unless we envision a climate subject to no future trends, we may be assured that the vegetation of Oregon will change in the future as it has in the past. We have no present basis for predicting in detail the direction these changes of earth, climate, and forest will take, or what will be the nature of western North America a million, ten million, years hence. But one reliable method of looking into the future is to study the plant life of the past, the sequence of fossil floras preserved in the sediments of yesterday."

Chaney's work expanded our knowledge, understanding, and vision of the John Day Fossil Beds. As Chaney understood, and the world around us demonstrates, changes in climate cause changes in the plant environment subjected to and dependent upon that climate. A changing plant environment means changes in plant-eaters, and subsequent changes in the predators that feed on them. Many of these changes to plant and animal populations could be "evolutionary" in nature, as the expanding fossil record, world-wide, seemed to reveal.

In the last few decades there has been a resurgence in the scientific and community interest in the John Day Fossil Beds, so much so that protection of the fossil resources again became a national topic in the 1970's. The value of these fossil bed resources to local, national, and international scientific study was fully appreciated when, in 1975, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument was established by Congress. Over 14,000 acres, or near twenty square miles, has been set aside to protect the fossil resources of three widely separated and prolific fossil sites. These three sites, or units, can be visited today; The Clarno Unit, The Painted Hills Unit ,and the Sheep Rock Unit. Representing just a small part of the known fossil beds, these three units of the monument are still yielding thousands of fossil finds each year.

The prospecting, preparation, and study of fossils at John Day Fossil Beds is busier now then ever, even surpassing the exciting days of the late 1800's fossil rush. Remarkably, the over-all size of the known fossil beds continues to expand as paleontologists explore new areas of Oregon in cooperation with other government agencies and private landowners alike. Consider the size. In 1998, over 640 fossil localities, such as the scenic and popular Blue Basin, were identified as part of the fossil beds. These localities are spread out over an area more than 10,000 square miles in size, bigger than the state of New Jersey. Should one be able to stack all the different fossil-bearing layers of the John Day Fossil Beds on top of each other at one spot it would be over 2 miles thick.

But the noteworthy size and coincidental scenic beauty of these fossil beds are not all that is significant. Through the work of people like Condon, Marsh, Cope, Sternberg, Merriam, Chaney, and a host of others, scientist and layperson alike can now appreciate the inherent uniqueness of the John Day Fossil Beds toward our understanding of prehistoric life. These fossil beds have characteristics that very few others on this planet share — great numbers of fossils - great diversity of fossils (Over 2,100 species of prehistoric plants and animals have been identified from the fossil-bearing layers!) — well preserved fossils — a fossil record covering a long time span — and the ability to date the fossils found here.

Many of the fossil discoveries can delineate "first" or "last" points in time. The earliest known elephant-like animals, and the last known primates (until humans returned), to have lived on the North American continent are part of the John Day Fossil Beds record. With each new specimen added to the 20,000+ fossils in the monument's museum collection we add a bit more information and evidence to, as Charles Sternberg so aptly stated, "human knowledge" — and our understanding of past life.

As to the spark of controversy that erupted in 1959 over Charles Darwin's radical theory, after more than 130 years of dedicated and extensive accumulation of scientific evidence, it is now clear, "beyond a reasonable doubt," that life forms have changed dramatically over the vast expanse of geologic time. Modern scientists, especially biologists, constantly study, ponder and deliberate the patterns, mechanisms and pace of evolution, but they do not debate evolution's occurrence. As scientist Theodosius Dobzhansky said in 1973, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Dobzhansky's assertion accurately illuminates the central and unifying role of evolution as a process (not a purpose) in nature, and the John Day Fossil Beds have played a significant role in the outcome of this controversy, and will continue to do so.

It should be noted that the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has been charged with seeking and identifying life in space. The need for the agency to know exactly what life "is" became essential to their success. NASA has developed an interesting working definition - "—life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution."

One does not need a NASA space vehicle to visit John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Ironically, a short drive burning fossil fuels will do. The fossil treasures visitors discover on display at the monument tell a wonderful story of ancient life and evolutionary changes over time. It is a story enhanced and refined with each new fossil that peeks out from the ground into the eyes of an awe-struck student of ancient life. It is truly a landscape of memory.