Mastodon’s Teeth Taken From Well

Miss Helen Beck poses with the “Tualatin Tooth”

REPRINT: The Oregon Journal, October 31, 1937

Widely separated areas in Oregon recently have given up evidences of wild life in the state in prehistoric times.  Near the grass toots of a new well he started on his farm near Tualatin, Charles M. Roberts, chief of police there, uncovered some teeth and parts of the skeleton of a mastodon.  The skeleton rested in a low rich onion growing field, where not more that 20,000 years ago, believes Dr. H. C. Dake, Portland student of paleontology, the mastodon may have been a victim of the last great ice age which extended down nearly into Oregon, forcing these great mammals to migrate to the warmer climates of the south. 

The 20,000-year-old specimen is a babe, however, compared with the million-or-so-year-old mammoth tooth dug up by Raymond Powell 35 miles south of Lakeview.  The mammoth, also a member of the prehistoric elephant family, had long parallel ridges on its teeth.  The grinders of the mastodon were raised and rounded. 

Of the specimen on the Roberts place at Tualatin, on tusk has been found to date.   In addition to six teeth, some of them a foot long and part of the lower and upper jaws.  Dr. W. Claude Adams, another Portland student of paleontology, upon examination declared the bones to be those of a mastodon that lived in comparatively recent times. 

The teeth and bones are exceptionally well preserved and are considered remarkable in that they have been preserved without undergoing petrifaction.  Most of the teeth have large well tapered and curved roots. The chewing surfaces are only slightly worn, indicating they are perhaps from a young animal.

The Lakeview specimen, petrified because of its much longer burial, weighs 16 pounds, with part of the jawbone to which it is attached. 

Recently and expedition in Siberian encountered a mammoth which had been frozen in the ice for approximately 20,00 years.  It was removed hide, flesh, skeleton, and all to Leningrad, by keeping it packed in ice.  Scientists will make a details study of this first known instance where so remarkable an opportunity of this kind had been available.  The flesh was in a well preserved condition through its 20,000 years burial in the ice. 

The mastodon of Tualatin is in all probability to older than the Siberian specimen.

Article as it appeared in the October 31, 1937 Oregon Journal