Marshalls Creek Mastodon
Middle Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In 1968, John W. Leap and workers at a nearby peat bog discovered the bones of a large mastodon that died about 12,000 years ago. These large, tusked mammals (Mammut americanum) lived throughout North America from 5.2 million to 10,000 years ago. The Marshalls Creek specimen, now in the collection of the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, ranks among the most complete mastodon skeletons found on the East Coast.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Twelve thousand years ago, as the last Ice Age loosened its grip, mastodons browsed the spruce forests and bogs of what is now eastern Pennsylvania. In 1968 workers cutting peat near Marshalls Creek uncovered the remarkably complete skeleton of one of these elephant relatives, an animal that had died and settled into the bog millennia before. Now housed in the State Museum in Harrisburg, it remains one of the finest mastodon finds on the Atlantic seaboard.
Why it matters
The skeleton opens a window onto the vanished Ice Age world that greeted the first people to reach the region, deep in America's natural prehistory.
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Related people
- · John W. Leap
Related events
- · Discovery of the Marshalls Creek Mastodon
Themes & tags
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