Where Did The Mastodon Go?

[Lionel]

The ponderous creature, dripping and oozing primordial slime from the vast, trackless pit that spawned it, advanced slowly and deliberately down Glen Street. All of New Britain was awestruck. Every form of life capable of movement fled its path or was trampled underfoot. And still it came, heaving its massive 10,000-pound bulk onto Main Street as the earth shook with every shattering step.Sound like the plot line of a 1950s horror movie, or an acid flashback left over from the ’60s? Actually, it goes back a lot longer than that and it very likely did happen almost exactly as described above -- 50,000 years ago. Give or take a few. Years that is.The nearly intact skeletal remains of a Mastodon, the Pleistocene-era precursor to the elephant was unearthed in New Britain nearly a decade before the Civil War and promptly vanished like some grand David Copperfield illusion. And thereby hangs the "tail," so to speak.

Mastodons apparently roamed the area, in fairly large numbers, just before the start of the last Ice Age. Most of the best discoveries of their remains were made in and around upstate New York. The bones found in New Britain however were said to have been one of the most complete specimens ever unearthed.

View: Full Article | Source: New Britain Herald