Huntington Canyon Discoveries

Colombian Mammoth

Part of the Huntington Canyon mammoth skeleton as it was exposed during excavation, with 1-meter grid. The vertebral column is clearly shown in the middle of the photo. Ribs and the upside down lower jaws are visible on the left. The bones were in a saturated clay horizon that protected them from decay.

New discoveries of fossil vertebrates in northern Utah include several of the extinct megafauna. A nearly complete skeleton of the Colombian mammoth, Mammuthus columbi, was discovered by construction crews in Huntington Canyon, between Fairview and Huntington, in 1988.

Our office (State Paleontologist, then in the Division of State History) conducted the excavation and study of that skeleton, associated plant fossils, an associated cheekbone with teeth of the giant short-faced bear Arctodus simus, and several human artifacts.

The mammoth died at a record-high elevation (9,000 feet) for the species, which is generally regarded as a plains animal. The age of this old bull was roughly 65 years, based on comparisons of dental wear in modern elephants. The Huntington mammoth was also one of the last mammoths to live in North America; the best radiocarbon date of roughly 11,220 14C years before present represents the very end of mammoth existence in the Americas.

The bones were so perfectly preserved by the bog conditions that they retained proteins; these original organic compounds will be analyzed for genetic information, diet, and disease by colleagues at other institutions.

The author photographing the mammoth excavation at Huntington Canyon.

The mammoth discovery was all the more spectacular for the preservation of a set of boluses, or round mats of partially digested vegetation from its intestinal tract, giving direct evidence of the old bull's last meal: more than half was fir needles, a decidedly poor diet for an elephant. The cause of death remains undetermined.

Casts of the mammoth skeleton are on display at the University of Utah Museum of Natural History and the College of Eastern Utah's Prehistoric Museum in Price, and in several other museums around the world.

Short-faced Bear

The Huntington Canyon short-faced bear found at the site is around 400 years younger than the mammoth. Dated at roughly 10,800 14C years before present, this individual was one of the last of the Pleistocene megafauna in North America, perhaps even the last generation. If this difference in age between the mammoth skeleton and the cheekbone and teeth of the bear is correct, it is possible that the bear had fed on the frozen carcass of the mammoth, like wolves do today in the Arctic on mammoths that are at least 10,000 years old.

A groove in one of the mammoth's foot bones perfectly matches the huge canine tooth of this giant bear, half again as large as modern grizzlies. Whether the groove was made by the same individual bear remains a mystery, but it is possible that the bear fed on the carcass and died at the same place.