Island 35 Mastodon
Encyclopedia
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
in Tipton County
Tipton County, Tennessee
Tipton County is a county located on the western end of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 51,271. Its county seat is Covington. Tipton County is part of the Memphis, TN–MS–AR Metropolitan Statistical Area, centered on Shelby County, which borders Tipton on...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In 1900, a Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodons were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut which inhabited Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago. The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group...
skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
was excavated approximately 3 mi (4.8 km) east of Reverie
Reverie, Tennessee
Reverie is an unincorporated community in Tipton County, Tennessee, United States. In 2001, the population was 11.Over a period of about 24 hours on March 7, 1876, the Mississippi River abandoned its former channel that coincided with the Tennessee-Arkansas border, and established a new channel...
, Tennessee and 4 mi (6.4 km) southeast of Wilson
Wilson, Arkansas
Wilson is a town in Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 939 at the 2000 census.The town was named after Robert E. Lee Wilson, a landowner and logging business owner in the area in the late 19th century....
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed.
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Mammut. They resemble modern elephants.
Native
Indigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, they are said to have lived on the North American continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
from almost 4 million years ago, in the Tertiary
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
period, until their eventual disappearance about 10,000 years ago.
Discovery
In 1900, archaeologist Dr. James K. Hampson documented the discovery of skeletalSkeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
remains of a mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodons were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut which inhabited Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago. The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group...
on Island No. 35 of the Mississippi River, Tipton County, Tennessee. The site of the prehistoric find is approximately 3 mi (4,8 km) east of Reverie, Tennessee and 23 mi (37 km) south of Blytheville
Blytheville, Arkansas
Blytheville is the largest city in and one of the two county seats of Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 15,620 at the 2010 census....
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
.
During heavy rain in June 1900, sand at the point bar of Island No. 35 had been washed away, exposing the mastodon skeleton in the sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
when the water retreated from the sandbar in July of the same year.
John Pendleton, a resident of Island No. 35, notified his neighbor Dr. James K. Hampson about unusual bones he had found exposed by the retreating water at the head of the river island. Reportedly, Hampson visited the site of the find "2 or 3 weeks" after the prehistoric bones had been discovered.
By the time of Hampson's arrival, many of the bones had been stolen and the skeleton had been considerably damaged by "curiosity seekers" and "ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
hunters". The remainder of the skeleton ("mainly parts of the hind leg and pelvis
Pelvis
In human anatomy, the pelvis is the lower part of the trunk, between the abdomen and the lower limbs .The pelvis includes several structures:...
") were excavated by Hampson with the help of a pick to separate the mastodon bones from the gravel and pebbles in which they had been resting "cemented together by a clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
".
Although this find was initially believed to be the remains of a single animal, Morse and Morse subsequently reported that the site consisted of at least two separate mastodons. Several human artifacts were recovered in possible association with the skeletal remains. However, these materials lack direct provenance, and it is generally believed that the artifacts and skeletal remains do not represent Paleoindian/Paleoelephant interaction.
Today
In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed.The remaining mastodon bones are on display in the Hampson Museum State Park
Hampson Museum State Park
The Hampson Museum State Park in Wilson, Arkansas, U.S.A. exhibits an archeological collection of early American aboriginal artifacts from the Nodena Site. The Nodena Site is an archeological site east of Wilson and northeast of Reverie, Tennessee....
. The Tipton County Museum in Covington also exhibits some fossilized mastodon bones.