PALEONTOLOGY COLLECTION AT THE RAYENARI MUSEUM AROUND LAGUNA DE BUSTILLOS, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO

Museums can teach us general aspects of science, art, and culture, or they can give us a multifaceted view of the environment of a region. It is the case of Rayenari Museum at common Favela (Cuauhtemoc), it’ is located west-central Chihuahua State and consists of a collection of ancient objects of daily use (such as tools, coins, dishes and photographs), archaeological, geological, paleontological and art objects donated by the museum's founder painter Elizabeth Dávila García and residents of surrounding suburbs.

The paleontological material comes mainly from donations from local people who often find fossils of vertebrates that are possibly from Pleistocene, although there are fossils of mid-Cretaceous oysters and other invertebrates such as ammonites, gastropods and several bivalves.

The material is composed mainly of remains of proboscideans that are buried within the common in sandy sediments that are extracted for sale as they represent economic benefits for the local population.

Among the fossil remains of proboscideans (Mammuthus sp. among others) are maxillary molars, ribs, vertebrae, long bones, and so on, there are also remains of several types of ungulates consisting of molars, jaw fragments, vertebrae and long bones. All the above material is at a preliminary stage of study.

There are 2 hypotheses to explain the presence of fossil proboscideans in this area: one relates to the habits of this group to choose certain zones as cemeteries and the second has to do with some extraordinary event that took the life of entire herds in this place.

The study of this material in collaboration with students majoring in Geology and Mining is part of the preliminary inventory carried out by the Faculty of Engineering of the Autonomous University of Chihuahua (UACH) supporting National Institute of Anthropology and History -Chihuahua (INAH) for the Museum Rayenari.