SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Faculty and students from Foothill College, Santa Clara University, and San Jose State University are excavating a site in Monterey County where two Columbian Mammoths, an adult and an infant, have been found.
The team has uncovered about 10 percent of the skeletal remains, which are heavily fragmented and will need conservation and restoration. Archaeologists have also found hair, which may allow scientists to extract DNA. If successful, this will be the first published recovery of DNA from Columbian Mammoths, and it will also help experts learn the how they’re related to Wooly Mammoths and modern elephants.
A farmer in Castroville first found the bones in December while leveling his property with heavy equipment, exposing a tusk and molar. The farmer contacted Mark Hylkema, the Santa Cruz District archaeologist with California State Parks and the project director, who has since gathered a team involving Site Director Daniel Cearley, an anthropologist at Foothill College, and Project Coordinator Timothy King, an archaeologist and anthropologist at Santa Clara University.
The attached Press Fact Sheet contains detailed information.
Contact NBC Bay Area at 408-432-4780 for pool video beginning Tuesday, March 29.
Contact Connie Kim Coutain for photos.
Due to security issues, no one will be allowed on the excavation site, and please do not contact the property owner.
Hylkema, Cearly, King, students, and other members of the team will hold a press conference at a later date. In the meantime, the team will do its best to update the media as often as it can. However, please do not contact them via their personal e-mail addresses or their office and cell phone numbers. If you have any questions, you can e-mail them to castrovillemammoth@gmail.com, and members of the team will do their best to respond as quickly as they can.
If you’d like to receive press releases and/or updates or have any other questions, you can also reach the team’s media contact, Connie Kim Coutain at: ccoutain@scu.edu | 408-554-5126 O | 408-829-4836 C
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6662418&lang=en