Melbourne Bone Bed

[2] C. P. Singleton discovered the bones of a mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) on his property along Crane Creek, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate the skeleton.

Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon, horse, ground sloth, tapir, peccary, camel, and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 years ago.

At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon, Megalonyx, and Chlamytherium (ground sloth) teeth.

C. P. Singleton also continued to collect from the Golf Course site when Loomis and Gidley were absent, reportedly with the permission of the Smithsonian and some funding from Harvard University.

[1] Recent consensus dates the Melbourne Man as early as 10,000 BC confirming that Native Americans coexisted with Pleistocene mammals in the area at the end of that period.

Fossil deposits from the Melbourne Bone Bed were discovered in a tributary of Crane Creek, similar to the one shown here.