A remarkable discovery in Orange County, New York, has unearthed a complete mastodon jaw, marking the first such find in the State in over 11 years. The jaw, along with additional bone fragments, was recovered by researchers from the New York State Museum and SUNY Orange from the backyard of a residence near Scotchtown, in the Town of Wallkill. [Read more…] about Mastodon Remains Discovered in Upstate New York
Mammoths & Mastadons
The Old State Museum: Old Bones, Extinction & Climate Change
To commemorate the start of another school year, the New York State Museum posted a series of photos on social media from field trips to the original museum, now occupied by the New York State Education Department.
That building, completed in 1912 and distinguished by a colonnade of pillars facing the capitol building, is the place where many of us first saw the State Museum’s zoological collection, which famously included fossils, skeletons and life-sized reconstructions of extinct ice age mammals. [Read more…] about The Old State Museum: Old Bones, Extinction & Climate Change
Mystery Tusk: Searching for Elephants in the Maine Woods
Mystery Tusk: Searching for Elephants in the Maine Woods (North Country Press, 2022) chronicles Gary Hoyle’s search for the identity of a tusk found in the collection of an old, dismantled museum, when the author was the Curator of Natural History at the Maine State Museum. [Read more…] about Mystery Tusk: Searching for Elephants in the Maine Woods
Mastodons & Warren County’s Paleoclimate
The Warren County Historical Society will host “Mastodons and the Paleoclimate of Warren County,” a program on the prehistoric animals that use to roam what is now Warren County with Paleontologist Dr. Robert Feranec, set for Wednesday, May 17th. [Read more…] about Mastodons & Warren County’s Paleoclimate
Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant
In 1866, NY State Geologist James Hall received a message from T.G. Younglove, an official at Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York, informing Hall that while conducting some excavations to expand the mill they uncovered a “great pothole” at the foot of Cohoes Falls where the Mohawk River begins to empty into the Hudson.
The “great pothole” contained a large jawbone “of some unknown beast,” much larger than that of an elephant. [Read more…] about Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant
James Hall: New York’s First State Geologist & Paleontologist
James Hall was born on September 12, 1811, to James and Susanna Hall of Hingham, Massachusetts. His father was a weaver trained in England who was making a comfortable living. One day he opened his newspaper and noticed a “help wanted” ad posted by a textile mill in Massachusetts.
The salary was far better than James Hall, Sr. could earn in England. [Read more…] about James Hall: New York’s First State Geologist & Paleontologist
Some History Of The Warren County Mammoth Tooth Going On View November 5th
The Warren County Historical Society is welcoming back to the county a giant mammoth tooth found in Queensbury before the Civil War.
The prehistoric elephant roamed Warren County some 13,000 years ago when the county was more tundra-like with sedges and lichens in a very cold environment left by the retreating ice sheet on its way back North. [Read more…] about Some History Of The Warren County Mammoth Tooth Going On View November 5th
The Orange County Mastodon & America’s ‘Founding Fossils’
In the latest episode of A New York Minute in History, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts dig into the 19th Century discovery of a mastodon skeleton in Orange County.
The “Orange County Mastodon” was one of the earliest, if not the first, complete mastodon skeletons discovered in the U.S. These large fossils captured the attention of many Americans who were determined to dispel the myth of American degeneracy. [Read more…] about The Orange County Mastodon & America’s ‘Founding Fossils’
Amos Eaton: RPI, Noah and the Erie Canal
The 1820s was known as the diluvial decade. The reference is the search for geological evidence of Noah’s Flood.
The decade was on the cusp of the emergence of geology as a full-blown science in its own right with the publication of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology; being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation (1830-1833). Eventually there would be a new “ology” in colleges as knowledge fractured into the silos that define the modern university with diverse specialties and expertise. [Read more…] about Amos Eaton: RPI, Noah and the Erie Canal
Heritage Tourism Lessons from Jurassic World
Jurassic World, showcases the plight of executive directors of destination tourist sites in continually developing newer and more exciting exhibits to attract an increasingly bored public. The exhibits at Jurassic World are even more thrilling than our best American Revolution or Civil War reenactments. [Read more…] about Heritage Tourism Lessons from Jurassic World
Hidden History of Columbia County, NY
Bordered by the Hudson River and the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, few know Columbia County is noted for a mastodon tooth that rolled down a farmer’s hill in Claverack changing the world’s understanding of prehistoric times.
President Martin Van Buren lost his wife, Hannah, in Kinderhook and hardly mentioned her again. Hudson’s gallows were the scene of New York’s last hanging, as hundreds of ticket holders looked on. “Pondshiners” in the hills of Taghkanic made fantastic baskets.
Local author Allison Guertin Marchese explores these little-known stories of people and places in
Hidden History of Columbia County, New York (History Press, 2014). [Read more…] about Hidden History of Columbia County, NY
Peter Feinman: Bring Back the Mastodons!
It is time for New York State to boldly go where no state has gone before and go back to the future to resurrect the now extinct mastodon. The effort to bring the mammoth back from extinction recently was the cover article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
Russia and Japan are working to create mammoths. New York should not be left behind in the de-extinction race. I hereby challenge Governor Cuomo to launch a new “Manhattan Project” so we are the first to bring the paleolithic era to life through the creation of Mastodon Park, our own Ice Age animal, the mastodon. [Read more…] about Peter Feinman: Bring Back the Mastodons!
Size Matters: New York’s Mastodons
Tectonic forces and global cooling and warming set the stage for the dawn of New York State history. The stage was not a barren one and long before King Kong climbed the Empire State Building that scrapped the sky, giants walked the ground that would become the Empire State. These giants would be called “mastodons” and they became important in religion and nationalism in ways that before their discovery no one could have imagined.
The story of mastodons and New York begins in 1705 in Claverack, Columbia County. A Dutch tenant farmer picked up a five-pound tooth that had rolled down a hill and landed at his feet. Being a sensible sort of person, he naturally traded the tooth to a politician for a glass of rum. The tooth thereupon made its way up the political food chain until it arrived in London. [Read more…] about Size Matters: New York’s Mastodons
Mastodon Tusk May Be Largest Ever Uncovered in NYS
Research under way at the New York State Museum indicates that a huge mastodon tusk, recently excavated by Museum scientists in Orange County, may be the largest tusk ever found in New York State. The nearly complete but fragmented tusk, measuring more than nine feet long, was one of two excavated this past summer in the Black Dirt area of Orange County at the confluence of Tunkamoose Creek and the Wallkill River, on the property of Lester Lain of Westtown. Museum scientists believe that the other less complete tusk, about 5-6 feet long, came from the same mastodon, which has been named the Tunkamoose mastodon.
Glen Keeton of Mount Hope, N.Y. and Chris Connallon of Hampton, N.J. came across the tusks in November 2008 as they were canoeing down the Wallkill River. Keeton contacted the Orange County chapter of the New York State Archeological Association, which then contacted the State Museum. Weather conditions delayed the excavation until this past
summer.
Since then, Dr. Robert Feranec, the Museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology, has been researching other mastodon excavations in New York State. Feranec believes that the Warren Mastodon tusk, which is 8 feet, 8 inches long, is the longest one uncovered to date. It was discovered in New York State in the 1800s and is on exhibit at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The tusk of the Cohoes Mastodon, on display at the State Museum, is about 4-5 feet long.
Based on the age of similar fossils, Feranec suspects that the tusks are about 13,000 years old. However, carbon dating results to determine the exact age, will not be available until later this year. In the meantime, the tusks have been taken apart to be cleaned and conserved for their long-term survival. It is hoped that eventually the tusks can be made available for scientific research and exhibits at the State
Museum and at a museum in the area where the tusks were found.
Abundant mastodon fossils have been found in Orange County, especially in the rich Black Dirt area which Keeton calls “a gold mine for these fossils.” Other fossils have also been found including those of giant beavers, stag moose, ground sloths, peccaries and reindeer. Several Museum scientists will be involved in an integrative research
project in the Black Dirt area where they will investigate the ancient environment in which the mastodon lived, as well as how that environment changed over the last 13,000 years.
“From my perspective, this is a significant find,” said Feranec. “These fossils will tell us more about the ancient history of New York. We hope to be able to reconstruct the environment in which the mastodon lived, as well as to try to understand why they went extinct.”
In 2007, Feranec oversaw the relocation of the Cohoes Mastodon from the State Museum lobby window to its new location in the Museum’s Exhibition Hall, where temperature and humidity levels are more stable and more conducive to the skeleton’s long-term preservation. The iconic Museum treasure is now the centerpiece of an expanded exhibition.
Discovered in 1866 near Cohoes Falls, the Mastodon once stood about 8 ½ feet tall, was about 15 feet long, and weighed between 8-10,000 pounds. Its tusk weighs 50 pounds.
Photo: During the excavation process in Orange County, Dr. Robert Feranec, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the New York State Museum, poses next to part of the tusk of a mastodon. (Photo courtesy of NYS Museum)