The Twenty - Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous
Number 20
The Hiscock Site
Known locally as the Byron Dig, the site is an ongoing archeology dig in the Town of Byron. In 1959, landowner Charles Hiscock was digging a pond on his property when his backhoe pulled up a mastodon tusk. Both the Rochester Museum and Science Center and the Buffalo Museum of Science were contacted; and the Buffalo Museum conducted an exploratory dig. They did not conduct a full study due to the lack of funding. 
The area is at the edge of the Bergen Swamp and was once covered by Lake Tonawanda (See #22: Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.) As the glaciers receded at the end of the last Ice Age, two watersheds were created. One flowed west towards the Niagara River, the other flowed east and emptied into the Genesee River. The Hiscock Site is located in a spring area between these two watersheds. It's believed that Paleo-Indians and animals used the spring as a stopping area in their migrations.
The first extensive scientific excavation occurred in 1983 under the leadership of the Buffalo Museum of Science Curator of Geology, Dr. Richard Laub. Dr. Laub formally introduced the site to the world in 1986.
To date, less than one-quarter of the 52-acre Buffalo Museum of Science-owned property has been explored.
How did this Make Genesee County Famous?
It is recognized across the country as one of the most important and informative sites of the late Ice Age era. Every summer, Dr. Laub leads nearly 200 volunteers from around the world to the site to dig for three weeks. The digs last three weeks because they find so many artifacts that it takes researchers the rest of the year to clean, repair, preserve, photograph and catalog the items.
Diggers have found tens of thousands of artifacts, ranging from a 13-foot-long mastodon tusk to thousands of turtle and frog bones. Besides parts of the mastodon, they have found stag-moose, a sandstone bead (one of a few from the Ice Age ever found in North America), an imprint of very fine textured weaving believed to be over 8,000 years old, and condor bones.
Going into its 25th year, the Byron Dig is one of the largest ongoing digs in the world. 
Further Reading
The Hiscock Site: Late Pleistocene And Holocene Paleoecology And Archaeology of Western New York by Richard S. Laub (Editor)
Links:
Buffalo Museum of Science Geology Department
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Forward to Number 19: Genesee Community College
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 All the Images are from an exhibit at the Holland Land Office Museum. The exhibit was on loan from the Buffalo Museum of Science as has since been returned. |