Edmunds County Tribune -

The Ipswich Historical Society is sharing articles written by IHS students. The students visited the museum, researched and wrote about events, people and businesses in the community.

Mastodon

by Paige Maher

I chose to research the mastodon skull found in the Mina area. I learned that in 1949, a mastodon skull was unearthed on the Kienest farm, north of Mina, South Dakota. This amazing discovery proved their existence in the South Dakota area. The mastodon which is a large, extinct, elephant-like mammal that existed many years ago. The mastodon can now be found in Rapid City at a children’s museum.

According to the Rapid City Journal, a professor at the museum says “Here we also have a mammoth skull that unfortunately was discovered by a bulldozer,” Olsen said. “It has had some reconstructive surgery to return it to the full skull you see at the life-size height today.” From her quote we now know how the mastodon skull was discovered and what with. The museum has taken great care of the mastodon skull and continues too.

To get more of a vision on what a mastodon was and how big it really was, you would need to look at an elephant. According to New World Encyclopedia, mastodons are an extinct species of elephant the lived around 27 million years ago. And to think, we only began to find their remains in 1705. I chose to research this topic because I live in the Mina area and had no idea such amazing creatures lived here!