When There is mastodon, many people wrongly call on the legendary mammothsHowever, these are very different animals. A few million years before mammoths – those elephants are – appeared on earth, their relatives mastodones They had already settled in it. They are physically different: mastodones They are smaller, with smaller and less curved teeth, and their bodies is less humpback.
Also Their skulls and molars are different because they did not shared the same diet: While the mammoths were pastors and had specialized in grasses, the mastodones They were Ramoneadores and fed with leaves, tree branches, fruit and grass.
Loose Proboscides enjoyed a big peak in the tertiary era, especially during the MioceneWhen they were present all over the planet with the exception of Australia and Antarctica. The fossil record on the Iberian Peninsula is extremely abundant and offers a very complete sample of the myocene and pliocene periods.
Archaeological discovery of Mastodon Fangs
The excavation promoted by the Junta de Castilla y León on the hill of the Valladolid matches has the Restore the remains of the two defenses of a mastodon of the tertiary era. The remains were in a pronounced costs for which one of the paths that are possible with bicycle from the hill of the competitions and were discovered by a burger.
The Rainwater action revealed an elongated, partially buried object of a circular section And trunk development, broken into three parts, although they have all been associated. Apparently it was an animal defense with a remarkable age because it had completed its fossilization process.
For him Risk of deterioration and even disappearance of this unusual finding, the general directorate of the cultural heritage of the board of Castilla Y León promoted an archaeological action of emergency situations To verify the observations of the territorial archaeologist according to adequate methodological procedure.
The execution of the works, which had a period of three months, It could only start in March due to the weather conditions.
The archaeological excavation, consisting of the opening of a tasting of 5 x 2 meters, has the restoration of the Two defenses, as well as a few tooth elements of a proboscide in anatomical position.
For the geomorphological contextThe finding has a great scientific and informative importance, because it is the remains of a mastodon that lived in the tertiary eraSpecifically between the Upper Orleanian and the inferior Astaracian (lower and half myocene, 16-12 million years).
As soon as the remains have been extracted, they go Go to the Provincial Museum of Valladolid, where they are consolidated and, if possible, exposed for their pleasure by citizens.