page_title: Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Agate Fossil Beds National Monument / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument near Harrison, Nebraska
context_page_description: Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is a U.S. National Monument near Harrison, Nebraska. The main features of the monument are a valley of the Niobrara River and the fossils found on Carnegie Hill and University Hill.
  The area largely consists of grass-covered plains. Plants on the site include prairie sandreed, blue grama, little bluestem and needle and thread grass, and the wildflowers lupin, spiderwort, western wallflower and sunflowers.
context_section_description: The site is best known for the large number of well-preserved Miocene fossils, many of which were found at dig sites on Carnegie and University Hills. Fossils from the Harrison Formation and Anderson Ranch Formation, which date to the Arikareean in the North American land mammal classification, about 20 to 16.3 million years ago, are among some of the best specimens of Miocene mammals. Species found at Agate include:
  Miohippus, an ancestor of the modern horse
  Menoceras, a pony-sized rhinoceros
  Amphicyon, a bear dog
  Daeodon, the largest Entelodont (giant pig-like ungulate)
  Stenomylus, a gazelle-like camelid
  Palaeocastor, land beavers that dug large corkscrew-shaped burrows (Daemonelix)
  Moropus, a chalicothere which are relatives of rhinos and horses
  Originally the Agate Springs Ranch, a working cattle ranch, was owned by Capt. James Cook. The monument's museum collection also contains more than 500 artifacts from the Cook Collection of Plains Indians artifacts.
  The national monument was authorized on June 5, 1965, but was not established until June 14, 1997.  The Harold J. Cook Homestead (Bone Cabin Complex) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.  Agate Fossil Beds is maintained by the National Park Service.
caption: Entrance to the monument
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