Anyone with even a passing interest in history knows that this area is replete in historic treasures. But a Wicomico resident was recently part of a team working in Virginia’s Historic Triangle that made an exciting discovery that predates the region’s colonial history by millennia.

Jeff Lane, along with two other science enthusiasts, are in the process of cleaning, repairing and organizing the unearthed bones and teeth of an mastodon in York County, one of only three such sets of remains ever found in Virginia.

A distant cousin of the modern-day elephant, mastodons roamed the forests of North and Central America as much as 90,000 years ago. There are many theories why mastodons became extinct about 12,000 years ago, Lane said, including over-hunting and climate change.

Bones and teeth unearthed at the site, which has not been publicly identified, have been removed from the York County pit to a facility in Williamsburg for safe keeping. There, volunteers have been cleani...