A
Copy of the Hyde Park Mastodon for the People of Hyde Park
Executive
Summary
Between August and October 2000, a team from the
Paleontological Research Institution and Cornell University excavated a very
complete mastodon from a pond in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York. The
skeleton is one of the best preserved and most complete ever found; it is
approximately 11,500 years old. This proposal seeks support to make a cast of
this extraordinary specimen and mount it for public exhibit in the new
SPACESHIP DISCOVERY museum currently being planned for Hyde Park.
Introduction
In the summer of 1999, Larry and Sheryl Lozier decided to
have their pond deepened. The Loziers live in Hyde Park, NY in the house that
Larry grew up in. He remembers the pond from his childhood. Little did he know
that it had been there for much, much longer.
The Loziers hired an excavator, who removed 2-3 feet of
mud from the bottom of the pond. After the digging was over, Larry found what
he at first thought was a log, but which on closer inspection turned out to the
be giant leg bone of a mastodon. Eventually, he made contact with the
Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) in Ithaca, NY, and in August 2000 the
rest of the skeleton was discovered in the center of the Lozier’s pond.
The excavation took more than 8 weeks and involved more
than 300 people, mostly volunteers, who spent more than 3,000 person hours on
the task. Particularly active as volunteers were students from area high
schools and colleges.
The find was widely covered in the media, including The
New York Times, National Public Radio, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News,
People Magazine, and the Poughkeepsie Journal. It was the subject of an
hour-long documentary, Mastodon in Your Backyard: the Ultimate Guide,
made by the Discovery Channel and broadcast in October 2001. It will be
featured in the book In Search of America by Peter Jennings and Todd
Brewster, to be published in September 2002.
Scientifically, the Hyde Park mastodon is very
significant. It is one of the best-preserved and most complete mastodon
skeletons ever found anywhere (the skeleton is approximately 97% complete). As
such it has the potential to reveal much about life and the environment at the
end of the Ice Age, as well as answers to one of the greatest of all
paleontological mysteries: why mastodons and other large mammals suddenly
became extinct around 10,000 years ago. The Mastodon Project, a joint effort of
PRI and Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is
currently coordinating research on this and other recent mastodon finds in New
York; more than a dozen separate research efforts are underway as part of this
Project, on topics ranging from pollen to leaves to beetles to climate.
What is
a Mastodon?
Mastodons are extinct cousins of modern elephants. They
lived abundantly across North America for millions of years, until they became
extinct around 10 thousand years ago. Why they became extinct is still a
mystery that has puzzled scientists for more than a century. Solving this
puzzle might help us to understand how life responds to environmental change
and why other species become extinct.
Mastodons are similar to, but distinct from, the more familiar
mammoths, from which they are most easily distinguished by their teeth.
Mastodon bones have been found frequently across New York State for centuries
(the first mastodons known to science were found in the Hudson River valley in
the late eighteenth century), but complete and well-documented finds are rare.
The Hyde Park mastodon skeleton is currently housed at
PRI in Ithaca, and plans call for it to be mounted in PRI’s new public exhibit
facility, the Museum of the Earth, which is scheduled to open in 2003. Plans
have been made to make molds of the bones at the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor, under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Fisher. Dr. Fisher is a world
authority on mastodons and mammoths, and participated in the excavation of the
skeleton at Hyde Park. He has extensive experience in molding and casting
mastodon and mammoth skeletons. After a mold is made, the skeleton will be
shipped to a firm in Canada, where a steel infrastructure will be built for it
that will allow it to be mounted for public exhibit. It will be shipped back to
Ithaca in April 2003 in time for its installation in the new Museum.
Once the molds are made, casts can be made using a
variety of materials and for a variety of purposes. At least one cast will be
made for research purposes; this is important since the original bones will be
mounted on display and so not easily examinable by researchers. Such research
casts will likely be made using high-density resin, making them relatively
heavy. Casts made primarily for exhibit, however, will be cast using lighter
materials and as hollow structures, greatly reducing their weight and so the
difficulty and expense of mounting them for exhibit.
This proposal seeks support for production of a cast
using the molds made at Michigan, transportation of this cast to Hyde Park, and
mounting and installation of it in the new SPACESHIP DISCOVERY museum...Casting
will be done by PRI staff and students at the University of Michigan. The casts
will be shipped commercially to Hyde Park and stored until exhibit space is
ready. We have received quotes from two firms (both in Canada) to mount the
casts in a lifelike position in the new Museum.
How and
why will the Hyde Park Mastodon fit into the SPACESHIP DISCOVERY Museum.
The Loziers, at the time of discovery, decided they would like the mastodon to be located in close proximity to Hyde Park. They decided that the new SPACESHIP DISCOVERY Science and Technology museum would be the ideal location. The museum’s location and ability to not only display the mastodon, in its prehistoric gallery, but to enhance the history of these magnificent creatures with large, high definition plasma displays made it an ideal choice. Soon after the discovery Larry Lozier met with Floyd T. Holt, President of the SPACESHIP DISCOVERY, who has since then been in close contact with the Warren D. Allmon, director of PRI.
The Hyde Park mastodon represents an important and integral portion of the overall theme of the museum since our “SPACESHIP” has the ability to travel from the past to the present and into the future. The overall mission of the museum will be greatly enhanced by this addition since it represents an actual piece of history indigenous to Hyde Park. This extraordinary display will help the museum to become the premier Science and Technology destination for the Hudson Valley and this region of New York.
In addition, the museum has been asked by Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park Institute to send a proposal for possible collaboration with them. In any event a prehistoric setting is planned with educational programs to complement the displays. The Discovery Channel video will be shown in the Jurassic Park theatre during regular visitor hours and for educational field trips to the museum.
About
the Paleontological Research Institution
The Paleontological
Research Institution (PRI) was founded in 1932 by Gilbert D. Harris
(1864-1952), a professor of geology at Cornell University from 1894 to 1934, to
house his fossil collections and library and to serve as a base for publishing
his journal, Bulletins of American Paleontology (begun in 1895). PRI was
chartered by the State of New York as an educational institution in 1936.
Today, PRI houses more than 2 million specimens, one of the largest fossil
collections in the United States, and the Bulletins is the oldest
paleontological periodical published in the Western Hemisphere. PRI closely
cooperates with but is not formally connected to or supported by Cornell
University.
In addition to its internationally-known activities in
research, publications and collections, the Institution has an active and
expanding educational outreach program that serves more than 19,000 people each
year at all educational levels. PRI's new
18,000 sq ft exhibit facility, the Museum of the Earth, is scheduled to open in
spring 2003. More information is available at <http://www.priweb.org/>www.priweb.org.