By Glenn L. Jepsen

Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003

Many mastodon bones have been discovered in swamps or morasses, and this has led to the belief that the creatures dwelt in marshes, a concept that is supported by the fact that the skeletons are sometimes found in a "standing pose" with the bones of the feet more or less in an upright position. Even groups or herds of remains are said to have been seen in this attitude. The bones are usually brown in color although some are light tan to off-white, and the fact that they often occur in the shallow soil of forests close to the surface has led to the conjecture that mastodons were living only a few hundred years ago – an idea now generally discounted in favor of a longer time since they became extinct. Bones and tusks of modern elephants disintegrate rapidly on the surface of the ground, and are completely destroyed by exposure to the elements in a few years. Burial by only a few inches of soil helps preserve them for a much longer time. Recent tests show that bones of related proboscideans, the mammoths, which have been in the deep freeze of the permafrost of Alaska for hundreds or thousands of years have not changed much chemically although they are now tan and brown instead of white as they originally were.

Whenever large bones of mastodons (or any other fossil animals) are found on or near the surface of the ground specialists should be called at once to preserve and collect them. This may be a difficult job. Nearly eighty years ago a mastodon skeleton was found in an old beaver meadow near Freehold. The ivory of the tusks "was in consistency like new white cheese" and as they were removed and dried they "crumbled to power." Modern collecting methods could have saved them.

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