Watch out! Prehistoric creatures are closer than you think.
By Warner M. Montgomery
Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

Dr. Al Mead discovered that Colombian Mammoths roamed the Georgia coast with the early Americans.

Dr. Al Mead, geology professor and curator of mammals at Georgia College and State University (Al.mead@scsu.edu), shocked members of the Greater Piedmont Chapter of The Explorers Club at their monthly meeting last Friday. He said his discoveries in south Georgia might mean that mammals long thought extinct might have lived alongside early humans on the Georgia coast.

Dr. Mead's dig in the Altamaha Barge Canal near Brunswick, Georgia, beginning in 2001 discovered remains of mammoths, mastodons, bisons, giant tortoises, cormorant, and other vertebrates that had been considered extinct in North America for over 300,000 years. But, much to the surprise of the academic community, Mead's discoveries have been carbon dated at only 12,350 years old. Even though he has not found any evidence of human existence at the site, it is an accepted fact that humans did live in what is now Georgia and South Carolina at that time.

The Explorers Club was founded in New York City in 1904. The Greater Piedmont Chapter which serves members in the southeastern states meets monthly in Columbia. Information on the club may be obtained from Dr. Warner M. Montgomery, chair of the local chapter, 771-0219.

Dr. Al Mead holds a vertebra of a mammoth found in the Altamaha Barge Canal in south Georgia.