Ancient & Medieval History in the South Bay Area

Medieval-SCA

You can find out more about ancient and medieval times right here in the South Bay Area. Learn about the mysterious rock wall formations, too.

Paleontological

Boy Paleontologists
In the Irvington gravel pits, known as Bell Quarry, located off of Osgood Road from 1944 to 1960, the Boy Paleontologists of Hayward unearthed plant and animal fossils including mammoths, saber cats, horses, camels, and even rodents. A new species named Tetrameryx irvingtonensis, a four-pronged antelope, was the most significant find. Presently Freeway 680, between Washington Boulevard and Durham Road, covers this fossil field.

Children’s Natural History Museum
Including “Irvingtonian Fossils”, the “Boy Paleontologist” Room, “Bones of Vertebrates,” and “Environments through Time” exhibits. View the fossils from Irvington and Warm Springs District that provide clues for a changing landscape in the East Bay.
4074 Eggers Drive, Fremont, California
Open Tues and Thurs 2-5, first and third Saturdays (1-5).

Fossils of Fremont
Geology maps help to show where fossils may be located along the Mission Fault line.

Fossil treasure trove discovered at Silicon Valley construction site
The discoveries are revealing what Silicon Valley looked like 20 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch, when the ocean extended as far inland as Bakersfield. Since 2011, when work on the project began, crews have found nine whale skulls, to be exact. They have inventoried 529 types of fossils altogether. Of those, 168 are vertebrates, such as sharks; 267 are invertebrates, such as scallops — some as big as dinner plates. Thirty-nine 39 are plants, such as fossilized pine cones; and 55 are other ancient items, from animal tracks to burrows.

Columbian Mammoth

Mammoth Discovered in San Jose
On Saturday, July 9, 2011, Roger Castillo, a San Jose truck mechanic, was walking his dog along a levee next to the Guadalupe River, just north of West Trimble Road and the Mineta San Jose Airport. The bones may belong to a Columbian mammoth, Mammuthus columbi, a species known to have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Late Pleistocene.

Trove of ancient marine fossils surprises Bay Area dam builders
Crews had no clue when work started on a Bay Area dam in 2011 that they would stumble onto a trove of marine fossils many millions of years old. Hundreds of specimens have been found at the Calaveras Dam site near Milpitas, Calif. Among the 529 specimens inventoried are scallops as big as dinner plates, a hippo-like mammal called a Desmostylus, megalodon sharks, and whales with and without teeth. Most of the fossils are believed to be about 20 million years old.

Ancient History

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium
Temporarily Closed. While not exactly Milpitas history, you’ve never seen so many mummies and ancient artifacts in one place! Located in San Jose.

Medieval

Medieval-SCASociety for Creative Anachronism
The International Headquarters of this organization is in Milpitas! This is a link to the first page of their Heraldry section. Want a Coat of Arms?

The Principality of The Mists
Greater San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey Area SCA groups.

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