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Scientist Believes Bones Likely a Mammoth

Posted on: Wednesday, 13 July 2005, 21:20 CDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- A scientist from University of California, Berkeley confirmed Wednesday that a cluster of fossilized bones found in Silicon Valley are likely those of a mammoth that roamed the area between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Local officials uncovered on Tuesday what appear to be a massive pelvic bone, ribcage fragments and a tusk in the sandy banks of a canal adjacent to San Jose's Guadalupe River, which was recently dredged for flood protection.

"It looks like there are a pair of elephant tusks weathering out on the banks of the Guadalupe," UC Berkeley paleontologist Mark Goodwin said. "It will require additional work to be absolutely sure, but most likely it's a mammoth."

Goodwin believes they are the fossilized remains of a Columbian mammoth, an elephantlike creature that grazed in the San Francisco Bay area's savanna grasslands thousands of years ago.

"It's not uncommon, but it is rare to find an association of bones, as opposed to just one or a fragment or a piece of tusk," Goodwin said.

The Bay Area's abundant prehistoric fossil record shows mammoths, camels, horses, sloths and saber-toothed cats once inhabited the area.

And while scientists have found numerous fossil fragments near Fremont and Danville, Santa Clara County Water District spokesman Mike DiMarco said Tuesday's discovery was the first find of its kind in the district's 75-year history.

Officials at the water district, which owns the site, began studying the bones after they got a call from a San Jose dog walker who spotted the bones over the weekend.

"I was walking along the bank and looked down at the clay and thought: 'Wow, that's a large bone!' It was too big for a cow bone," said Roger Castillo, a truck mechanic and self-taught naturalist.

Goodwin said he hopes to return with shovels, brushes and "some graduate students in tow" to excavate and study the bones. DiMarco expects the dig will take a couple of months.

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