Editing Mastodon (section)

==== Early American observations ====
[[File:C W Peale - The Exhumation of the Mastadon.jpeg|thumb|The 1806–1808 painting ''The Exhumation of the Mastodon'' by [[Charles Willson Peale]]]] 
In 1785, Reverend Robert Annan wrote an account recalling an event in which workers discovered bones in his farm near the Hudson River in New York in fall of 1780. The workers found four molars in addition to another that was broken and thrown away. They also uncovered bones, including vertebrae that broke shortly thereafter. Annan expressed his confusion at what the animal could be but speculated based on its "grinders" that it was carnivorous in diet. He speculated also that it was probably extinct due to some catastrophe within the globe.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Annan |first=Robert |year=1793 |title=Account of a skeleton of a large animal, found near Hudson's River |journal=Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |volume=2 |number=1 |pages=160–164 |doi=10.2307/27670792 |jstor=27670792 |bibcode=1793MAAAS...2..160A }}</ref>

American statesman [[Thomas Jefferson]] stated his thoughts on ''[[Notes on the State of Virginia]]'' (published by 1785) that the fossil proboscideans may have been carnivorous, still exist in the northern parts of North America, and are related to mammoths whose remains were found in Siberia. Jefferson referenced the theory of American [[social degeneracy]] by [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon]], countering it by using extant and extinct animal measurements, including those of "mammoths," as proof that North America faunas were not "degenerative" in size.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jefferson|first=Thomas|year=1785|title=Notes on the State of Virginia|publisher=Philippe Denis Pierres|pages=42–80|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DTWttRSMtbYC}}</ref> Semonin pointed out that social degeneracy was an offensive concept to Anglo-American naturalists and that the American proboscidean fossils were used as political tools to inspire [[American nationalism]] and counter against the theory of American degeneracy.<ref name="monster5">{{cite book|last=Semonin|first=Paul|year=2000|title=American Monster: How the nation's first prehistoric creature became a symbol of national identity |chapter=Chapter&nbsp;5: The American ''incognitum'' in Paris |publisher=NYU Press |pages=111–135 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Semonin |first=Paul |year=2000 |title=American Monster: How the nation's first prehistoric creature became a symbol of national identity |chapter=Chapter&nbsp;11: “Monarch of the wilderness” |publisher=NYU Press |pages=263–287 }}</ref>

[[File:Skeleton Missouri Leviathan Drawing.jpg|thumb|left|Colored [[lithograph]] of the "''Missourium''" (= ''Mammut'') skeleton, {{circa|1845}}]]
In 1799, laborers recovered a thighbone while digging a [[marl]] pit at John Masten's farm in [[Newburgh (town), New York|Newburgh]], New York, and subsequent excavations were observed by a crowd of over a hundred people.<ref name="monster7">{{cite book |last=Semonin |first=Paul |year=2000 |title=American Monster: How the nation's first prehistoric creature became a symbol of national identity |chapter=Chapter&nbsp;13: Exhumation of the monster |publisher=NYU Press |pages=315–340 }}</ref> American painter and exhibitionist [[Charles Willson Peale]] visited the locality in 1801, where he first sketched the fossils then purchased excavation privileges and full ownership of the fossils from Masten and borrowed a loan from the [[American Philosophical Society]] (APS) in [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]]. In addition to the first skeleton, the second was excavated using a mill-like device to drain a {{cvt|12|ft}} deep marl pit. Peale assembled a complete skeleton in his [[Peale's Philadelphia Museum|Philadelphia Museum]] in 1804, and its exhibit was open first to invited members of the American Philosophical Society on December&nbsp;24 then to the general public on December&nbsp;25 for an exhibit admission fee in addition to the general admission fee.<ref name="peale">{{cite journal|last=Zygmont|first=Brian J.|year=2015|title=Charles Willson Peale's ''The Exhumation of the Mastodon'' and the great chain of being: The interaction of religion, science, and art in early-federal America |journal=Text Matters |volume=5 |number=5 |pages=95–111 |doi=10.1515/texmat-2015-0008 |hdl=11089/15025 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

The special exhibition attracted thousands of visitors, and the skeleton became a US national symbol.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hoffman |first=Sheila K. |year=2018 |title=The origins of Puritan politics in U.S. museums: Nation building and "the arts" from 1776 to 1806 |journal=ICOFOM Study Series |volume=46 |issue=46 |pages=131–145 |doi=10.4000/iss.1025 }}</ref> Charles Peale's son [[Rembrandt Peale]] took the skeleton to Europe used to promote the fossil proboscidean and have it used as support for Jefferson's final rebuttals against Buffon's arguments for supposed inferiority of American faunas. Author Keith Stewart Thomson argued that the promotion of the "mastodon" skeleton made it a symbol of the strength of American nationalism and that "mammoth" as a term became associated with gigantism. Decades later, the museum bankrupted, and the first skeleton's specimens were sold to some German spectators in around 1848, who eventually sold it to [[Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt]] in Germany where it is now displayed. The second skeleton's specimens landed eventually at the [[American Museum of Natural History]].<ref name="peale2">{{cite book|last=Thomson|first=Keith Stewart|year=2008|title=The Legacy of the Mastodon|chapter=Chapter&nbsp;6: Fossils and show business: Mr.&nbsp;Peale’s mastodon |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=46–54 }}</ref>

{{multiple image
 | align = right
 | image1= Burning Tree Mastodon excavation (mid-December 1989), Burning Tree Golf Course, Heath, east-central Ohio.jpg
 | image2= Mammut americanum - Burning Tree Mastodon (Upper Pleistocene, 11.39 ka; Burning Tree Golf Course, south of Heath, southern Licking County, central Ohio, USA) 1 (15276264887).jpg
 | total_width = 400
 | total_height= 400
 | footer = Excavation of a specimen in a [[golf course]] in [[Heath, Ohio]], 1989 (left) and a replica of the "[[Burning Tree mastodon]]" complete skeleton (right)
}}
Other skeletons of ''Mammut americanum'' were excavated within the United States in the first half of the 19th century. One of them was collected by American showman [[Albert C. Koch]] in what is today the [[Mastodon State Historic Site]] at [[Missouri]] in 1839. He hypothesized in 1840 that the proboscidean, which he classified as ''Missourium'', was much larger than an elephant, had horizontal tusks plus trunks, and occupied aquatic habitats.<ref name="koch">{{cite journal|last=McMillan|first=R. Bruce|year=2022|title=Albert C. Koch's Missourium and the debate over the contemporaneity of humans and the Pleistocene megafauna of North America|journal=Earth Sciences History|volume=41|issue=2|pages=410–439|doi=10.17704/1944-6187-41.2.410|bibcode=2022ESHis..41..410M }}</ref> He acquired additional fossils from a spring on the [[Pomme de Terre River (Missouri)|Pomme de&nbsp;Terre River]] to assemble a mounted skeleton of the "''Missouri Leviathan''" and briefly exhibited it at {{nobr|[[St. Louis]].}} After exhibiting the skeleton throughout Europe, he sold the skeleton to the [[British Museum of Natural History]]. [[Richard Owen]] then properly reassembled the skeleton, and it today is on display there.<ref name="koch2">{{cite journal|last=McMillan|first=R. Bruce|year=2010|title=The Discovery of Fossil Vertebrates on Missouri's Western Frontier|journal=Earth Sciences History|volume=29|issue=1|pages=26–51|doi=10.17704/eshi.29.1.j034662534721751|bibcode=2010ESHis..29...26M }}</ref><ref name="osborn"/>

In 1845, another skeleton was excavated from Newburgh by laborers hired by Nathaniel Brewster initially to remove [[lacustrine deposits]] to fertilize the neighboring fields. They were observed by a large number of spectators and uncovered relatively complete fossil evidence of ''M.&nbsp;americanum''.<ref name="warren3">{{cite book|last=Warren|first=John Collin|year=1852|title=The Mastodon giganteus of North America|section=Discovery of the skeleton|publisher=John Wilson and Son|pages=4–7|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/126175#page/24/mode/1up}}</ref><ref name="AMNH">{{cite journal|last=Horenstein|first=Sidney|year=2008|title=New York City Mastodons: Big Apple Tusks|journal=Evolution: Education and Outreach|volume=1|issue=2 |pages=204–209|doi=10.1007/s12052-008-0042-y|doi-access=free}}</ref> The skeleton was exhibited in [[New York City]] and other New England towns then was acquired by [[John Collins Warren (surgeon, born 1778)|John Collins Warren]] for study.<ref name="warren2">{{cite book|last=Warren|first=John Collin|year=1852|title=The Mastodon giganteus of North America|section=Geological situation and causes of preservation|publisher=John Wilson and Son|pages=154–167|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/126175#page/174/mode/1up}}</ref><ref name="newyork">{{cite book|last1=Hartnagel|first1=Chris Andrew|last2=Bishop|first2=Sherman Chauncey|year=1922|title=The Mastodons, Mammoths and Other Pleistocene Mammals of New York State: Being a Descriptive Record of All Known Occurrences|publisher=University of the State of New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9rxRAQAAIAAJ}}</ref> After Warren's death in 1856, the skeleton was sent to Warren's family but was traded to [[Harvard Medical School]] for John Warren's skeleton. The "Warren mastodon", under the request of American paleontologist [[Henry Fairfield Osborn]], was purchased by the American financier [[J. P. Morgan]] for $30,000 in 1906 and donated to the American Museum of Natural History where it is exhibited today.<ref name="monsterafter">{{cite book|last=Semonin|first=Paul|year=2000|title=American Monster: How the Nation's First Prehistoric Creature Became a Symbol of National Identity|chapter=Afterword: The Myth of Wild Nature|publisher=NYU Press|pages=392–411}}</ref><ref name="AMNH"/>