Mammoth tusk discovered in central Mississippi

MADISON COUNTY, Miss. ( WJTV ) – Scientists in Mississippi announced a major fossil discovery in the state!

According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), the agency’s Mississippi State Geological Survey scientists received a message about the discovery made by Eddie Templeton, an avid artifact and fossil collector. Templeton was exploring in rural Madison County earlier this month when he stumbled upon what appeared to be a portion of an ice-age elephant tusk exposed in a steep embankment.

Mississippi was home to three Proboscideans during the last ice age: Mastodon, Gomphothere, and the Columbian mammoth. All three possessed ivory tusks.

Officials said Mastodons are the most common Proboscidean finds in Mississippi. Mammoths, which were related to modern elephants, are far less common finds in Mississippi.

When Templeton and the State Survey paleontological team arrived to the fossil site, they found the fossil tusk in amazing condition and was only partially exposed just above the water under a bluff in the alluvium of a small drainage. It was suspected based on the strong curvature of the massive tusk that they were dealing with a Columbian mammoth and not that of the more common mastodon. Officials said this would be the first of its kind for the area.

The team was able to carefully remove the clayey sand from around the tusk to expose the seven-foot-long fossil. The tusk had been deposited entirely intact. MDEQ officials said most fossil tusk ivory found around the state are just fragments and most are likely to be attributable to the more common mastodon.

The fossil was taken to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science in Jackson for further curation and careful study. It was confirmed by a museum paleontologist as belonging to a mammoth.

Officials said the discovery offers a rare window into the Columbian mammoths that once roamed Madison County along the Jackson Prairie of central Mississippi. Columbian mammoths were much larger than the infamous woolly mammoth that roamed the colder, more northern regions of North America. They grew up to 15 feet at the shoulder and could weigh more than 10 tons.

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