Prehistoric jaw, other bone fragments unearthed in New York backyard

SCOTCHTOWN, Orange County (WABC) -- A prehistoric jaw was found in the soil in a New York backyard.

The mastodon jaw, along with additional bone fragments were found in the backyard in Scotchtown, Orange County.

A homeowner in Orange County was doing some work in his own backyard when he made a discovery.

The homeowner found two teeth in the front of their property. Two more teeth were later unearthed just inches underground along with a piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment.

Researchers say the findings will help enhance the understanding of the region's Ice Age inhabitants.

The New York State Museum reports over 150 mastodon fossils were found statewide to date - about one-third of them in Orange County.

"This is one of the first teeth, yeah. So he recognized that it was just sticking out of the ground," Dr. Robert Feranec of New York State Museum said.

The fossil from the ice age was discovered in topsoil, only 12 to 18 inches down into the ground.

"We initially I just thought we would kind of poke around and grab the other tooth and pull it out of the ground, and that would be it. But as we poked around that other tooth, it wasn't moving and we kind of poked around a little more and realized that it was stuck in something," Feranec said.

Stuck in the jawbone of a Mastodon, estimated at 13,000 years old, the bone fragments are now being researched and preserved in Albany at the New York State Museum.

"This is a piece of the toe that we found, and it was next to the jaw."

The toe, the jaw, and a piece of a rib bone were unearthed near the small hamlet of Scotchtown back in September while the homeowner was mowing the backyard of his home of 20 years.

"The property opens up onto a wetland. And they told me that they would joke that, oh, there's, there's a mastodon back here. There's something, there's fossils back here. Yeah. And they would joke back and forth like, oh, I'm going to find this one day," Feranec said.

The bones that were found correlate to a Mastodon this size - about 8 to 9 feet tall and weighing three tons. One at SUNY Orange in Middletown was found in 1972.

"We found these molars and then most of the jaw here, a lot of the part up in here had crumbled and it was in fragments. But most of this bottom lower part into the chin was still intact," said Dr. Cory Harris of SUNY Orange.

There have been 60 Mastodons discovered in Orange County, more than any other place in the country.

The last Mastodon bone was found 11 years ago.

"It was a Friday morning and a couple of property owners came into the college because they had found something unusual on their property, and they initially went to another faculty member who brought them to me because I have experience doing archeological excavations. But it was pretty clear immediately that they had mastodon teeth," Harris said.

The priority was to get the teeth out before winter, but come next spring, researchers hope to see what else might be out there.

"Oh, it is exciting. Absolutely. I mean, Orange County has a lot of Mastodons relative to the rest of the state and really the rest of the country. But that still doesn't mean you find it every day," Harris said.