During the environmental review for the Loop 88 highway project outside Lubbock, TX, planners with the Texas Department of Transportation made an interesting discovery – and promptly called in one of the agency’s archaeological teams to figure out what they found.

[Above photo by TxDOT]
“They found the bones of some large, prehistoric animals called ‘megafauna,’ which is not unusual in the region,” noted Chris Ringstaff, a project planner with TxDOT’s environmental affairs division, in a recent blog post.

He explained that the Panhandle area of Texas – where Lubbock is located – is home to many “playas” or remnants of lakes from the Ice Age. In prehistoric times, animals and humans used playas as water sources and these sites can sometimes contain evidence of human activity.

“If the site involves humans, we have to address road construction impacts under state and federal law,” Ringstaff said. “If the site has no artifacts and dates to a time well before humans, TxDOT will recommend no further work, and the project can proceed to construction.”

Given that Texas has other sites that show human activity with megafauna, TxDOT decided to take a closer look at the Loop 88 location. They opted for a process called “staged mitigation” that involves archeological excavation to look for human artifacts like chipped stone or spear points.

TxDOT said environmental staff and consulting archeologists excavated bones and took geologic and sediment samples for fine screening, with the agency also collaborating with the Museum of Texas Tech University for assistance with preparation, identification, and housing of the bones.

“We know we’ve found giant ground sloth by its distinctive tooth,” Ringstaff said. “Whether all the bones are giant ground sloth or there are different animals such as mammoth or mastodon, we’re not sure. Paleontologists will give us positive identification.”

Experts are examining the dirt collected around the bones for micro-artifacts and using geologic dating techniques to get a better idea of the chronology of the objects. Should the site reveal human activity with megafauna from the Ice Age, it would be first of its kind for a TxDOT project.

“Excavation is one of many steps we can take prior to road construction to ensure that Texas history is preserved,” added Rebekah Dobrasko, director of TxDOT’s cultural resources section.

Fortunately, even if further excavation is needed, TxDOT said work on the Loop 88 project is still well ahead of any physical construction deadlines – part of its planning work to ensure environmental reviews do not affect a project’s timeline.

“We’re here to get the road built,” Ringstaff said. “But who doesn’t love digging up big ol’ animals?”

Across the country, state departments of transportation are involved in a variety of cultural and archaeological efforts.

For example, in March, the Maryland Department of Transportation showed off a trove of “interesting artifacts” found at the Ben Ross home historical dig site; the place where the father of Civil War-era abolitionist Harriet Tubman lived and where she spent her teenage years in Dorchester County.

The agency said its archaeologists spent the past four years processing hundreds of artifacts collected from the Ross home, which is deep in the wetlands of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

In August 2024, the North Carolina Department of Transportation – in partnership with N.C. State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education – launched a two-year project aimed at mapping unmarked burial sites belonging to historically marginalized groups statewide.

In October 2022, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet helped establish a new website highlighting more than 100 prehistoric and historic archaeological sites across the state’s 64 counties.

The agency launched that website – Discover Kentucky Archaeology – in collaboration with the Kentucky Heritage Council-State Historic Preservation Office, an agency of the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet.

And in January 2022, the Colorado Department of Transportation debuted a documentary called “Durango 550 – Path of the Ancestral Puebloans” to show how the agency worked with archaeologists and regional Native American tribes to document, study, and ultimately share the discoveries unearthed near Durango in southwest Colorado.

On a recent episode of the “Talking Michigan Transportation” podcast, the Michigan Department of Transportation and Michigan Department of Natural Resources discussed efforts to implement a pilot program for analyzing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) and how to design safer roadway crossing infrastructure for wildlife.

[Above image by Michigan DOT]

Amanda Novak, a resource specialist in Michigan DOT’s Bay Region, discussed how the agency plans to use a recently awarded $476,000 federal grant to fund a WVC-prevention pilot program. She previously spoke about that grant award on the podcast in September 2024.

As laid out in the project abstract for the grant, the number of WVCs in Michigan continues to increase annually, worsening risks and costs to drivers. For example, white-tailed deer alone account for more than 55,000 WVCs and cost motorists an average of $130 million per year in Michigan. Additionally, WVCs are a major threat to many wildlife populations in the state, including documented impacts on several threatened and endangered species.

[Editor’s note: The video below from the New Mexico Department of Transportation explains the role wildlife crossings play in the protection both animals and the traveling public.]

“We are going to be looking at white-tailed deer across the state. There’s [also] one location we’ll be looking at elk crossings,” Novak said on the podcast. “In the UP [Michigan’s upper peninsula], a location we’ll be studying moose, black bear, wild turkeys, and the pine marten. Now, the pine marten falls in kind of that smaller species that doesn’t have as the impact on with wildlife-vehicle collisions, or on motorist safety, but collisions with these animals affects their population sizes. So that’s the pine marten, rattlesnakes, and the Blanding’s turtle specifically.”

Novak said her hope where this pilot project is concerned is that it encompasses all of Michigan DOT’s roadway corridors and figures out how to manage them for all species. “Not just looking at just these larger species where we have all the wildlife-vehicle collisions but mitigating for every [species] we can in those locations; managing all our corridors like this in some fashion,” she said.

Other state departments of transportation are involved in similar WVC mitigation efforts as well.

In October 2024, the California Department of transportation issued a Wildlife Connectivity Report that identifies more than 140 locations where roadways can be better integrated with the migration needs of animals statewide.

“Caltrans is seeking opportunities to better integrate our highway system with the state’s diverse natural environment” explained Tony Tavares, director of Caltrans, at the time.

“It is our responsibility to improve passageways for wildlife that live and migrate along our shared ecosystem, and remediation efforts highlighted in this report will help honor our goal to provide a world class transportation system that serves all people and respects the environment,” he said.

The Utah Department of Transportation recently outlined it’s nearly five-decade effort to mitigate WVCs statewide; a long-term effort by Utah DOT also included the recent development of The Utah Roadkill Reporter, which is a smartphone application introduced in 2022 that gets the public involved in reporting wildlife collisions.

And, in November 2023, the Wyoming Department of Transportation completed wildlife crossings built as part of its $15.1 million Dry Piney project.

The Dry Piney project – a joint effort between the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Wyoming DOT – includes nine underpasses and 16.7 miles of eight foot-high fencing on both sides of Highway 189 in the western part of the state to protect big game animals, primarily mule deer.