Valley of the Mastodons

San Bernardino County Museum paleontologist Carrie Lambert uncovers 30,000-year-old fossils near a leg bone of the second largest mastodon ever found on the West Coast of North America, at an excavation pit at the Eastside Reservoir Project near Hemet, California July 7, 1997. The dig site, which resulted from the largest paleontological mitigation effort in North America, paid off with a plethora of mastodon remains, including the 1995 discovery of "Max", the largest mastodon found on the West Coast, and a wide variety of extinct pre-Ice Age animals including saber-tooth tigers, long-horn bison, dire wolves, camels, and horses. So many mastodons have been found here that some paleontologist have dubbed the site, "The Valley of the Mastodons".(Photo by David McNew)