The Island 35 Mastodon was discovered on Island No. 35 of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

in Tipton County,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 1900, a

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

was excavated approximately east of Reverie, Tennessee and southeast of

Wilson Wilson may refer to: People * Wilson (name) ** List of people with given name Wilson ** List of people with surname Wilson * Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender * Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed. Mastodons are members of the prehistoric,

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Mammut''. They resemble modern

elephants Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and ...

Native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, they are said to have lived on the North American

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

from almost 4 million years ago, in the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.5810,000 years ago.

Discovery

In 1900,

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

James K. Hampson documented the discovery of

skeletal A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

remains of a mastodon on Island No. 35 of the Mississippi River, Tipton County, Tennessee. The site of the prehistoric find is approximately east of Reverie, Tennessee and south of Blytheville,

Wilson AR Hampson Museum State Park 08 Island 35 Mastodon femur

During heavy rain in June 1900, sand at the point bar of Island No. 35 had been washed away, exposing the mastodon skeleton in the

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

when the water retreated from the

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and Earth science, geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank (geography), bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body o ...

in July of the same year. John Pendleton, a resident of Island No. 35, notified his neighbor James K. Hampson about unusual bones he had found exposed by the retreating water at the head of the river island. Reportedly, Hampson visited the site of the find "2 or 3 weeks" after the prehistoric bones had been discovered. By the time of Hampson's arrival, many of the bones had been stolen and the skeleton had been considerably damaged by "curiosity seekers" and "

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is ...

hunters". The remainder of the skeleton ("mainly parts of the hind leg and

pelvis The pelvis (plural pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of the trunk, between the abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also called bony pelvis, or pelvic skeleton). The ...

") were excavated by Hampson with the help of a pick to separate the mastodon bones from the gravel and pebbles in which they had been resting "cemented together by a

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

". Although this find was initially believed to be the remains of a single animal, Morse and Morse subsequently reported that the site consisted of at least two separate mastodons. Several human artifacts were recovered in possible association with the skeletal remains. However, these materials lack direct provenance, and it is generally believed that the artifacts and skeletal remains do not represent Paleoindian/Paleoelephant interaction.Corgan, James X. and Emanuel Breitburg (1996): "Tennessee’s Prehistoric Vertebrates." State of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Division of Geology Bulletin 84, Nashville.

Today

In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed. The remaining mastodon bones are on display in the

Hampson Museum State Park Hampson Archeological Museum State Park is a Arkansas state park in Mississippi County, Arkansas in the United States. The museum contains a collection of archeological artifacts from the Nodena site, which is a former Native American vill ...

. The Tipton County Museum in Covington also exhibits some fossilized mastodon bones.

References

{{Reflist Mastodons Pleistocene proboscideans Paleontology in Tennessee Archaeological sites in Tennessee Tipton County, Tennessee Mammal fossils Individual proboscideans

Discovery

Today

See also

References