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Woolly mammoths, sabertooth cats and more roamed Alabama in the last Ice Age

This story is part 11 of the AL.com series “Ancient Alabama,” examining the natural forces that made Alabama what it is over the past 500 million years, and how those forces still shape the state today.

Mammoth tooth displayed by Adiel Klompmaker, curator of paleontology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa, Ala.Dennis Pillion
Mammoth tooth displayed by Adiel Klompmaker, curator of paleontology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa, Ala.Dennis Pillion

The Bone Dome is not for the faint of heart.

It’s not for inexperienced cavers, people who are afraid of dark or tight spaces, or people who aren’t prepared to slither through narrow underground passageways for an hour or two before even reaching the spot where they rappel down a 200-foot vertical shaft carved into the ancient limestone.

In short, the Bone Dome is not for me.

“It’s not a super easy place to get to,” said Steve Pitts, an avid north Alabama cave explorer who first found the Bone Dome in 1992 during an excursion with his future wife Jennifer Ellen Pinkley.

But for the people who are skilled and brave enough to reach it, the Bone Dome — tucked away deep within Fern Cave in Jackson County in northeast Alabama — offers one of the best windows to see what this state was like during the last Ice Age.

Or, technically, Ice Ages.

Read the full article at al.com.