Big Bone Lick Site National Historic Landmark Nomination
Kreinbrink J and Rockaway J. 2024. Big Bone Lick Site National Historic Landmark Nomination. National Historic Landmark Nominations. 72001585_NHL, 00000284_NHL. National Park Service. Washington, DC
This document is the National Historic Landmark (NHL) nomination for the Big Bone Lick Site in Union, Boone County, Kentucky. The NHL nomination for the Big Bone Lick Site documents its national significance under NHL Criterion 1 because of the unique significance and major contributions that fossils from the site have made toward the development of paleontology as a science, both nationally and internationally in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Not only has this location long been considered a world-class collection site for large Pleistocene epoch mammal fossils (ca. 2.6 million years to 11,700 years before present), but it also is the first nationally recognized site for fossil collection from which the fossils were scientifically studied. Big Bone Lick has been referred to as the birthplace of vertebrate paleontology in North America. Often referred to as the “first major New World fossil locality known to Europeans,” collections from Big Bone Lick influenced many of the important scientific minds of the period. The period of significance is from the first recorded European visit in 1739 to the last known major nineteenth century digging expedition in 1868.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Kreinbrink, Jeannine; Rockaway, John
- Date of Issue
- 2024-09-02
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Keywords
- Fossil, Kentucky, National Historic Landmark, Paleontology, Science, Union