Animal remains could be ancient mammoth

updated 6:44 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2007

STOCKTON, Calif. - Archaeologists believe ancient animal remains found 65 feet beneath a Stockton construction site may be those of a Columbia mammoth or a mastodon.

Crews building a new San Joaquin County office building unearthed the rear portion of the ancient skeleton last week. Scientists hope to identify the beast in a few months, but are working on the assumption that it is a Columbia mammoth, a relative of the woolly mammoth believed to have died out about 10,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have yet to unearth teeth at the site, which would allow them to say definitively if it was one of the elephant-like creatures. If it is, it wouldn't be the first time a mammoth's remains have been discovered in the Central Valley.

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