Boys Find Mastodon Bone Along Stream in Macomb County
A Shelby Township boy and his cousin will go down in Macomb County's artifact history after discovering an American Mastodon bone near 24 Mile and Dequindre roads.
It’s nearly every young, adventurous boy’s dream to stumble upon prehistoric artifacts while playing in their backyard. For an 11-year-old Shelby Township boy, Eric Stamatin and his cousin Andrew Gainariu, 11, that dream came true this summer. The boys found a mastodon bone while exploring a stream on 24 Mile and Dequindre roads. “At first it just looked like a rock but it had a hole in it so we thought maybe it was a bone,” said Stamatin. The boy’s family sent a picture of the bone to Cranbrook Institute to be examined. John Zawiskie geologist with Cranbrook later identified it as the axis bone of the extinct American Mastodon. “The axis is one of two specialized vertebrae that secure the head to the vertebral column, and judging from the…
