Qualla: Conkling Cavern https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Conkling Cavern https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern Conkling Cavern: Introduction https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern/ The entrance drops straight down into darkness. Conkling Cavern, hidden on the eastern flank of Bishop's Cap in New Mexico's Organ Mountains, is not a place for casual exploration. But for paleontologists, this vertical shaft has yielded an extraordinary record of life and death during the Pleistocene epoch. Excavated in the late 1920s, the cavern surrendered the bones of giant ground sloths, prehistoric camels, dire wolves, California condors, and at least two ancient humans whose remains were found gnawed in what appears to have been a wolf den.

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/s/p/conkling-cavern-wp/9tsp-conkling-cavern-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Conkling Cavern: A Bone Cave in the Desert Peaks https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern/ Conkling Cavern sits on the east side of Bishop's Cap, an outlier peak of the Organ Mountains in Dona Ana County, near Las Cruces. The cavern entrance is essentially vertical, dropping into a chamber that was originally filled with sediment to within eight feet of the opening. R....

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/s/p/conkling-cavern-wp/9tsp-conkling-cavern-a-bone-cave-in-the-desert-peaks.mp3 0:06 2 full Conkling Cavern: Giants of the Ice Age https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern/ The fauna recovered from Conkling Cavern reads like a roster of Pleistocene megafauna that once roamed the Chihuahuan Desert region. Multiple species of ground sloth appear in the record, including the giant Megalonyx and the smaller Nothrotheriops. Prehistoric camels of at least...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/s/p/conkling-cavern-wp/9tsp-conkling-cavern-giants-of-the-ice-age.mp3 0:06 3 full Conkling Cavern: Ancient Humans Among the Beasts https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern/ Perhaps the most startling discoveries at Conkling Cavern were the fragmentary remains of two humans. One skull fragment was found at a depth of about twelve feet, close to the claw bones of a ground sloth. The second skull portion lay much deeper, approximately twenty-six feet d...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/s/p/conkling-cavern-wp/9tsp-conkling-cavern-ancient-humans-among-the-beasts.mp3 0:06 4 full Conkling Cavern: A Living Record of Climate Change https://qualla.com/conkling-cavern/ The bird fauna from Conkling Cavern tells its own story of a dramatically different landscape. California condors, now restricted to reintroduction sites in the far West, once soared over southern New Mexico. Greater sage-grouse, a species now found only in sagebrush country far ...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/s/p/conkling-cavern-wp/9tsp-conkling-cavern-a-living-record-of-climate-change.mp3 0:06 5 full