Columbian Mammoth

The Columbian mammoth is South Carolina's official state fossil, designated by the General Assembly in 2014. Mammuthus columbi was one of the largest land animals of the Ice Age, reaching up to 14 feet at the shoulder — taller than a modern African elephant. It lived across North America in the open grasslands and scrublands south of the glaciers.

South Carolina's coastal plain rivers have produced some of the best-preserved Columbian mammoth remains in the Southeast. Fossils turn up regularly along the Edisto, Ashley, and Waccamaw rivers, pulled from the sediment by erosion and river dredging. The state has no single famous excavation site — instead, a steady stream of bones has come up from dozens of river bends over more than a century.

The Columbian mammoth was larger and less shaggy than its northern relative, the woolly mammoth. It stood up to 14 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed up to 10 tons. Its most dramatic feature was a pair of spiraling tusks that could reach 16 feet in length, used for stripping bark, digging for roots, and fighting rivals.

Unlike the woolly mammoth, Mammuthus columbi was adapted to warmer climates. It grazed on the open grasslands, shrubs, and wetland plants of Ice Age North America, including what is now South Carolina's coastal plain, which was then drier and farther from the coast than today. The Columbian mammoth went extinct about 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, as temperatures rose and the grasslands it depended on shrank.

South Carolina designated the Columbian mammoth as its state fossil in 2014. The effort was driven by South Carolina schoolchildren who brought the proposal to the General Assembly, pointing to the frequency of mammoth fossil discoveries along the state's rivers. Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill into law that year.

The Columbian mammoth was a strong candidate because its fossils appear across the state with unusual regularity. River dredging projects, storm erosion, and private collection had turned up mammoth teeth, tusks, and limb bones from the coastal plain for generations. Choosing a species already woven into the state's river archaeology made the designation straightforward.

The Edisto River, which winds through Orangeburg, Colleton, and Charleston counties, is the most consistently productive source of Pleistocene megafauna in South Carolina. Mammoth teeth, tusks, and leg bones have been pulled from its banks and bottom sediments by collectors, farmers, and dredging crews for over a century. The river cuts through ancient floodplain deposits where bones accumulated in the soft sediment of stream channels.

The Waccamaw River and the coastal strand near Myrtle Beach in Horry County have also produced Columbian mammoth remains, along with mastodon teeth and giant ground sloth bones. Offshore dredging operations in the Atlantic have brought up mammoth fossils from areas that were dry land during the Ice Age, when sea levels were roughly 300 feet lower than today.