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Archaeology & Paleontology
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| Pioneer Trails Regional Museum |
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Millions of years before North Dakota was a state, prehistoric creatures were living out their legendary adventure. Today, you can visit - and excavate at - fossil-bearing sites ranging in age from 30-years to 73-million years.
The Rendezvous Region
The Cavalier and Pembina County area is often referred to as the Rendezvous Region because large rendezvous were held there during the fur trade era. The Rendezvous Region is one of the most scenic areas in the state, and it is also one of the most interesting areas from geological and paleontological perspectives. The oldest rocks in North Dakota are exposed in the Pembina Gorge and North Dakota's oldest fossils are found in those rocks. The rocks and fossils entombed in them provide evidence that North Dakota was covered by shallow seas from about 90 to 80 million years ago and that these seas were teeming with life. The last Ice Age, that ended just a few thousand years ago, is documented by landforms produced by glaciers in the Rendezvous Region. Warming of climate, which resulted in melting of glaciers at the end of the Ice Age, produced glacial Lake Agassiz. Lake Agassiz covered the Red River Valley. The terrain is extremely flat in most of Pembina County because the area used to be the bottom of this lake. Beach ridges, the shorelines of Lake Agassiz, are still present in western Pembina County.
Additional information on the prehistoric history of North Dakota is available through the state's Geological Survey.
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