13,600-Year-Old Mastodon Skull Found in Iowa Creek

(Des Moines) A 13-thousand-year-old mastodon skull has been found in an Iowa creek. Iowa’s Office of the State Archaeologist said in a social media post that they found the well-preserved skull on the side of a creek bed in Wayne County Wednesday at an excavation site they had been mining for the last 12 days.

Radiocarbon dating showed the skull was around 13 thousand 600 years old, the post said. Archaeologists will examine the bones closely to determine if they have evidence of human activity, such as cut marks. Several mastodon skulls were uncovered during the two-week dig, but the archaeologists said this skull was the “first-ever well-preserved mastodon that has been excavated in Iowa.”

Mastodons went extinct about 10 thousand years ago, but their bones have been found across North America.