PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF A NEW PARTIAL MASTODON SKELETON FROM WESTERN NEW YORK STATE

A partial skeleton of an American mastodon (Mammut americanum), consisting of approximately 25% of a single adult animal, was collected from a site in the Town of Java, Wyoming County, NY in the summer of 2001. The find includes a complete lower third molar; a complete right femur and fibula; fragments of other long bones; fragments of skull and mandible; a complete thyrohyoid; 28 different ribs, 11 of which are complete; portions of all four feet; and a complete left tusk. All of this material was recovered from spoil piles dredged from a pond at the site; no bones were found in situ. Exhaustive search of the surrounding area suggests that this is all the bones preserved at the site. The majority of the bones show evidence of scavenging, with tooth marks resembling those of a large canid being particularly common on several of the bones. These marks, together with the patterns of breakage and abrasion, suggest that the skeleton was exposed for a considerable length of time, or perhaps multiple times, before final burial. Comparison of the size of the tusk with those of other mastodon material from New York supports the hypothesis of significant sexual dimorphism in mastodons and suggests that the Java animal may have been a female. The geological setting of the site appears to be a shallow kettle in a kame deposit.