SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS
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Mastodons, mammoths were at home in Illinois
October 31, 2005
BY F.N. D'ALESSIO
A few months after the last of the elephants left Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in May, amid complaints from activists that Illinois doesn't have a climate fit for such animals, remains of their ancient relatives were showing up around the state.
''It almost seemed that mastodons and mammoths were falling out of the trees for a few weeks,'' said paleontologist Jeffrey Saunders, the curator of geology at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. He's frequently the expert called in to verify and identify the teeth, bones and tusks of the giant Ice Age mammals when they are found in the state.
Saunders was a very busy man in September. One of his trips was to a site on Sugar Creek in Logan County, where a Lincoln College freshman found two mammoth tusks while studying river mussels.
He also went to Pratts Wayne Woods Forest Preserve in DuPage County, where a contractor found mastodon teeth while working on a wetlands restoration project. Saunders' subsequent digging there turned up a rib and tusk fragments.
And on the same September day as the DuPage County find, a man developing a golf course in Kendall County called Saunders to say one of his workers had found a mastodon tooth there, and he wanted to know how much to pay him for it.
That's not to mention Waubonsee Community College's intermittent mastodon digging at Phillips Park in Aurora and the continuing mammoth dig far to the south at Principia College in Jersey County. Saunders has been involved in both of those projects, too.
He said the recent spate of findings may be due to this summer's drought, which shrank the wetlands where mastodon remains are usually found. It also may reflect the spread of construction projects into Chicago's outer suburbs.
''But whatever the reason, there's no doubting that we have a rich record of large Pleistocene fauna here in Illinois,'' he said, referring to the giant mammals of the last Ice Age. ''There are about 80 localities of record here for American mastodons, and about 60 for mammoths. And I'd suspect that probably only one out of every 10 finds is reported. I'd love to know how many remains are being used as doorstops or are sitting in private curiosity cabinets.''
Died out about 10,000 years ago
One long-hidden find was by John Dewey Thomas, who unearthed two mammoth teeth while building a new house in unincorporated Wilmington 25 years ago. Thomas told the Joliet Herald News recently he tried to keep the teeth a secret for nearly 20 years because he was afraid someone would dig up his yard. But Thomas has since gone public with his find.
Saunders said that in Illinois, mammoths typically seemed to have roamed glacial plains about 60 miles to the north of the swamps where the mastodons were living. He said both beasts died out during North America's Great Extinction about 10,000 years ago.
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AP
October 31, 2005
BY F.N. D'ALESSIO
A few months after the last of the elephants left Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in May, amid complaints from activists that Illinois doesn't have a climate fit for such animals, remains of their ancient relatives were showing up around the state.
''It almost seemed that mastodons and mammoths were falling out of the trees for a few weeks,'' said paleontologist Jeffrey Saunders, the curator of geology at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. He's frequently the expert called in to verify and identify the teeth, bones and tusks of the giant Ice Age mammals when they are found in the state.
Saunders was a very busy man in September. One of his trips was to a site on Sugar Creek in Logan County, where a Lincoln College freshman found two mammoth tusks while studying river mussels.
He also went to Pratts Wayne Woods Forest Preserve in DuPage County, where a contractor found mastodon teeth while working on a wetlands restoration project. Saunders' subsequent digging there turned up a rib and tusk fragments.
And on the same September day as the DuPage County find, a man developing a golf course in Kendall County called Saunders to say one of his workers had found a mastodon tooth there, and he wanted to know how much to pay him for it.
That's not to mention Waubonsee Community College's intermittent mastodon digging at Phillips Park in Aurora and the continuing mammoth dig far to the south at Principia College in Jersey County. Saunders has been involved in both of those projects, too.
He said the recent spate of findings may be due to this summer's drought, which shrank the wetlands where mastodon remains are usually found. It also may reflect the spread of construction projects into Chicago's outer suburbs.
''But whatever the reason, there's no doubting that we have a rich record of large Pleistocene fauna here in Illinois,'' he said, referring to the giant mammals of the last Ice Age. ''There are about 80 localities of record here for American mastodons, and about 60 for mammoths. And I'd suspect that probably only one out of every 10 finds is reported. I'd love to know how many remains are being used as doorstops or are sitting in private curiosity cabinets.''
Died out about 10,000 years ago
One long-hidden find was by John Dewey Thomas, who unearthed two mammoth teeth while building a new house in unincorporated Wilmington 25 years ago. Thomas told the Joliet Herald News recently he tried to keep the teeth a secret for nearly 20 years because he was afraid someone would dig up his yard. But Thomas has since gone public with his find.
Saunders said that in Illinois, mammoths typically seemed to have roamed glacial plains about 60 miles to the north of the swamps where the mastodons were living. He said both beasts died out during North America's Great Extinction about 10,000 years ago.
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AP
