Around 10,000 years before the present, nearly 30 mammalian species disappeared from the North American continent. Included in these are the native American horses, a few species of camels, several types of large ground sloth, odd antelope species with horn arrangements differing from that of our present pronghorn, bears much larger than our present grizzly, sabertooth cats, and the American lion (larger than the current African lion). Almost all of these were large-bodied, and are often labeled the "extinct megafauna". This extinct megafauna included large proboscideans, like the various species of mammoth as well as the American mastodon, Mammut americanum.

A controversy has ensued over this megafauna extinction concerning whether it was due to climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, or hunting activities of the earliest native Americans. Evidence can be brought to support both of the hypotheses, and both may be at least partially correct. The resolution of this controversy requires careful analysis of skeletal remains, to ascertain the cause of death and to discern post-mortem modifications. It also requires multifaceted approaches to the analysis of the environmental context of the death assemblage, in order to test hypotheses involving an ecological cause for the extinction event. Thus the long-term goals of the research on the Calvin College-Ada Bible Church mastodon include careful evaluation of the skeletal remains, and their depositional environment. At the end of the summer 1999, the beginning of this long-term study was under way.

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