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Bones Found in Texas Likely a Mammoth

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 06:14 CDT

BANGS, Texas (AP) -- Bones accidentally unearthed by a city crew last month probably were that of a Columbian mammoth that roamed Texas 9,000 to 40,000 years ago, a paleontologist said.

After three weeks of excavating at the site near Brownwood, Scott Clark and his crew found a 39-inch bone that indicates a prehistoric "elephant-type" animal.

"The size of the bone, however, puts it well outside the norms of a mastodon," Clark said.

Columbian mammoths, which weighed up to 9 tons and had tusks up to 16 feet long, was one of only two or three species common to Texas, Clark said. They are warm-weather cousins of woolly mammoths.

The digging process could take at least a year, Clark said. Because the bones have the consistency of clay, several have been wrapped in plaster to provide support and uphold preservation. The ground is sandy underneath the bone, which indicates that water carried the animal to its final resting place, he said.

Mammoth remains have been found across Texas through the years. Last summer, fossils found in a dry creek bed north of Dallas were determined to be that of a 10,000-year-old mammoth.

Tusks and other parts of two 38,000-year-old Columbian mammoths were found in late 2003 buried in a sand pit near Clute, southwest of Galveston, and people in Waco in 1978 found a herd of 24 mammoths that died in a mudslide 28,000 years ago.

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Information from: Brownwood Bulletin, http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com

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