Latest news with #CoryHarris
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
More mastodon remains found in Town of Wallkill's hamlet of Scotchtown
A team of SUNY Orange students, supervised by a professor and an instructor, has unearthed more mastodon remains at the same site where a jaw was found in 2024. For six weeks, the 12 students uncovered the ground, one square meter at a time. By the end, they had uncovered multiple vertebrae, including the atlas vertebrae, additional jaw fragments and ribs, all believed to have belonged to the same mastodon some 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. The atlas vertebrae served as the base for the mastodon's skull, bearing its weight and maintaining its upright position, SUNY Orange said in a news release. The students also found a series of smaller pieces of unidentified bones. The students worked under the supervision of Cory Harris, a professor of anthropology and sociology and chairman of the Behavioral Sciences Department at SUNY Orange, and instructor Anthony Soricelli. The primary items discovered have been shipped to the New York State Museum in Albany for examination and curation. In September 2024, a full mastodon jaw bone was uncovered at the same Scotchtown site, on a private residence. A few smaller bone fragments were also found. More: Discovery of jaw 'another chapter' in Orange County's mastodon history: What's next The SUNY Orange team on the latest project worked closely with Robert Feranec, director of research and collections at the state museum. "After working with Bob to excavate the jaw in the fall, I hoped we'd find more remains this summer, but this worked out much better than I could have imagined," Harris said in a statement. "For our students, they have been exposed to a level of experience and expertise that is uncommon at a community college." New York has been the site of more than 150 mastodon fossil discoveries over the years, and about one-third of them have happened in Orange County. Mastodons, an ancestor of the modern-day elephant, were similar to mammoths but with shorter legs, a longer body and heavier muscles. Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Times Herald-Record and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Reach him at mrandall@ (This story was updated to add a photo.) This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: More mastodon remains found in Town of Wallkill, NY: What to know Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
16-07-2025
- Science
- CBS News
More and more mastodon bones found in Orange County, N.Y.
The more they dig in Orange County, the more mastodon remains they find. The Ice Age mammals went extinct 11,000 years ago. The giants may have weighed up to six tons. They've been a longtime source of fascination in Orange County. "George Washington left an encampment in Newburgh and came to Middletown to see a tooth that a farmer had encountered," Dr. Cory Harris of SUNY Orange said. Harris recently led students on a weeks-long excavation in a back yard in Wallkill after the homeowner found mastodon teeth. The painstaking dig recovered more pieces. "We found quite a few vertebrae. We found some ribs," Harris said. The so-called "atlas bones" are perhaps 13,000 years old. "Where we found it, based on the sediments, the sediments indicated that the remains were in a former lake formed by a retreating glacier," geologist Anthony Soricelli said. A nearly complete mastodon skeleton dating to 8,000 B.C. was found in Orange County in 1972. It's named Sugar. Continued exploration for remains of these Ice Age mammals helps answer questions about our natural history and our ever-changing environment. "We're providing opportunities to our students at SUNY Orange. We're recovering real and important natural history for New York, and for Orange County," Harris said. Their finds will be further studied at the New York State Museum in Albany.
