Mastodon largest male specimens, the 35-year-old AMNH 9950 was tall and weighed , while another was tall and weighed . Like modern elephants, the females were smaller than the males. They had a low and long skull with long curved tusks, with those of the males being more massive and more strongly curved. Mastodons had cusp-shaped teeth, very different from mammoth and elephant teeth (which have a series of enamel plates), well-suited for chewing leaves and branches of trees and shrubs. Based on the characteristics of mastodon bone sites, it can be inferred that, as in modern proboscideans, the mastodon social
Chronology of the ancient Near East Chronology of the ancient Near East The chronology of the ancient Near East provides a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Individual inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers, taking forms like "in the year X of king Y". Thus by piecing together many records a relative chronology is arrived at, relating dates in cities over a wide area. For the first millennium BC, the relative chronology can be tied to actual calendar years by identifying significant astronomical events. An inscription from the tenth year of Assyrian king Ashur-Dan