U-M team recovers mastodon skeleton from Thumb site

The bones of an ice age mastodon, discovered three years ago emerging from a stream bank near Mayville, Mich., were recently recovered by a team associated with U-M.

Daniel Fisher, director of the university’s Museum of Paleontology, led students and staff as well as 10 Tuscola County teachers in the dig. Through their efforts, the animal’s long limb bones, both shoulder blades, the entire pelvis, the skull, many vertebrae and most of the ribs — accounting for 60–70 percent of its skeletal mass — were unearthed.

This particular mastodon, an extinct relative of the elephant, was believed to have been about 30 years old at the time of its death, based on molar wear. It likely lived at least 11,000 years ago; a radiocarbon age analysis will be conducted to pin down the date to within a century or less.

Over the decades, the remains of roughly 300 have been found in Michigan. But fewer than 10 of those specimens are as complete as the one recovered in Mayville, Fisher said.

The remains were originally found by students associated with the Fowler Center for Outdoor Learning. In their honor, the specimen will be known as the Fowler Center Mastodon. Kyle Middleton, executive director of the Fowler Center, praised the dig as a win-win. “A big part of our mission is to enhance personal growth through outdoor adventures that provide an opportunity for learning by doing,” she said. “And that’s exactly what this partnership with local teachers and U-M researchers was all about.”