The 13,900-Year-Old Mastodon Rib Found With A Bone Point Still Inside — And The CT Scan That Put Hunters Before Clovis

Gustafson excavated the site over several seasons beginning in 1977.

What he found was a largely intact mastodon skeleton — or a substantial portion of one — preserved in the wet organic sediment of the ancient lake or pond that had been gradually filling in over thousands of years.

The preservation was good by the standards of Pleistocene bone, aided by the wet, anaerobic conditions of the sediment that had buried the animal.

The mastodon was not alone in the deposit.