Mastodon State Historic Site
A museum and protected landscape where mastodon remains were found with a human-made stone point, linking people to Ice Age Missouri.
Artwork inspired by Charles W. Schwartz
The Kimmswick Bone Bed preserved bones of mastodons and other Pleistocene animals in former wetland deposits. Excavations in the late twentieth century found a stone projectile point in association with mastodon remains, important evidence that people and these animals overlapped here.
The visitor center explains excavation, changing climate, extinct fauna, and how archaeologists interpret context. Outside trails cross modern woods and the former spring landscape, but the most important “site” is not a standing ruin—it is a buried record understood through careful provenience.
- Period
- Late Ice Age
- Key evidence
- Clovis point + mastodon remains
- Allow
- 1½–3 hours
Quick guide
- Core comparison
- Kimmswick Bone Bed ↔ Mastodon skeleton
- Second-look plan
- Clovis evidence
Mastodon State Historic Site: evidence and scale
- Evidence
- Look at where objects were found together, not simply whether both appear in a case.
- Scale
- Compare mastodon teeth and limb bones with modern elephant anatomy.
- Landscape
- Use the trail to imagine a wetter Pleistocene setting, not today’s exact vegetation.
- Children
- Check demonstrations and programs; hands-on interpretation varies by date.
Good to know
Mastodons were woodland browsers with cusp-shaped teeth, unlike grass-grinding mammoths; the difference helps reconstruct the environment around the bone bed.
Notice these
- Kimmswick Bone Bed
- Mastodon skeleton
- Clovis evidence
- Spring landscape