Construction worker saw something odd at Illinois college. It was a 10,000-year-old tusk
A construction worker in Illinois was collecting soil on a college campus when he noticed an “anomaly” in the ground and called in experts to take a look.
Geologists from the Illinois State Museum went to Principia College’s campus to take a look, the college said in a news release. The “anomaly” was quickly identified as a tusk from either a mammoth or mastodon, Principia College president John Williams told McClatchy News on Wednesday, Jan. 11.
The tusk is at least 10,000 years old and not the first one found on the Elsah campus, Williams said.
Principia College found the remains of “Benny” the mammoth in 1999 and spent the next 14 years excavating the mammoth’s tusks, skull and remaining skeleton, the school said in a Sept. 9 news release after the latest tusk was initially found.
Considering this history, “our immediate presumption was that the tusk was of a mammoth,” Williams said. The newly found “mammoth” was named “Mike” after the worker who discovered it.
Subsequent radar scans of the area have found abnormal “pockets of space” in the soil, Williams said. These pockets may be “parts of the animal or other foreign objects,” he explained. The scans do not show what’s under the surface but do provide researchers with “a sense of the direction of a likely head block, skeleton and dimensions of the site,” Williams said.
“The objects are scattered,” Williams said, “which could be the result of other animals, or perhaps of erosion.”
Exploratory excavations led by Principia College professor Dr. Andrew Martin will begin this fall. “This could be a multi-year excavation, but very convenient because it’s here on campus,” Martin told The Telegraph.
“We are excited to learn more about the area during this period,” Martin told McClatchy News on Tuesday, Jan. 10.
Elsah, Illinois, is about 35 miles northwest of St. Louis, Missouri.
This story was originally published January 11, 2023 at 11:03 AM.
