100,000-Year-Old Mastodon Molar Unearthed

A construction worker has found a 100,000-year-old mastodon molar, and a geologist says the lack of wear showed that the animal died young.

Backhoe operator Randy Brooks said he found the tooth recently at the excavation site of a new Oregon Research Institute building.

The mastodon, a relative of the elephant that first lived about 40 million years ago in North Africa, reached North America about 15 million years ago and survived until about 8,000 years ago.

Brooks said last week that he would keep the tooth. He said he has always been interested in soils and has found many old bottles and fossilized clams in his work, but never anything like the tooth.

Brooks said he spotted the molar--which is about half the size of a fist--attached to a bone.

“When you see something that catches your eye, you usually jump off to see what it is,” Brooks said. He took the fossil home and “sat on it for a couple of days. I finally got curious enough to call the university,” he said.

Brooks gave the tooth to geologist William Orr, who estimated its age.

“When I got it it was in tiny fragments because it had dried out and crumbled,” Orr said, adding that he reconstructed it with glue.

The molar, found about 25 feet beneath the surface, did not show much wear, which indicates that the animal died young, he said. The mastodon probably was about the size of a Shetland pony, only stockier, weighing as much as 1,500 pounds, he said.