Everyone talks about the weather, but nowadays it’s really just small talk. We’d certainly have something to say, though, if we had been here about two million years ago. At that time, global climate change brought about an ice age. That’s why you might find it a little chilly in the third chapter of Indiana’s Story.
Hundreds of feet thick and enormously heavy, glaciers created lakes, changed habitats and gave Indiana a makeover. As the climate changed during the Ice Age, so did plant and animal populations. About 11,000 years ago, many large mammals such as mastodonts and mammoths began to disappear from North America and a new mammal arrived—us.
To help visitors appreciate this time period’s icy effect on Indiana, we’ve dropped the temperature in this area. Step into re-created environments in the gallery that depict a dire wolf and a peccary in a cave and a mastodont struggling after falling through an ice-covered lake.
Guests will discover bones and fossils from thousands of years ago, and the Age of Ice gallery is even equipped with Ice Age mammal skeletons including a short-faced bear, a mastodont and a giant beaver.
See some of the fossil treasures from the Carnivore Lair. Take a peek into the simulated cave environment for a glimpse of animal life 100,000 years ago.