In the early 1900s, paleontologists unearthed the Age of Mammals when they found full skeletons of extinct Miocene mammals in the hills of Nebraska -- species previously only known through fragments. At the same time, an age of friendship began b...
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument Visitor Center
The visitor center is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day. Summer hours are May 15 through September 30. The visitor center features a large diorama of Miocene mammal fossils, 12-minute park movie, and the James H. Cook Collection of Lakota artifacts, a unique collection of American Indian artifacts gifted to the Cook family by Chief Red Cloud and his descendants. Two trails are open every day from dawn till dusk.
Hike a one-mile trail back in time to the day of the paleocaster, a dry land beaver, and paleosoils, fossilized dirt from the time this landscape was formed. Look out over the vast, open table lands that define the high plaines east of the Rocky Mountains.
Fossil Hills Trail
Hike to University (left) and Carnegie Hills. The 2.7-mile Fossil Hills Trail allows visitors to walk up to and see the famed early 1900s quarries. From these quarries, paleontologists recovered some of the world's best preserved and most complete fossilized Menoceras, Moropus, and Dinohyus skeletons.
