Like many states, Kentucky also hosts the remains of creatures that lived during the Pleistocene Epoch, or Ice Age. These include mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, bears, tapirs, and giant beavers. Ice Age fossils from Kentucky played an important part in early paleontology. Mastodon fossils discovered along the Ohio River near Louisville in 1739 were the first fossils from the New World to be studied by French naturalists. One of the most famous fossil sites in the United States is Big Bone Lick.
Licks are places where animals come to obtain salt or other minerals.
They are often called salt licks, or mineral licks, because visiting animals lick or gnaw the earth. In the mid-18th century, when Kentucky was one of Virginia s western territories, Big Bone Lick was discovered on the banks of Big Bone Lick Creek. At the lick were the bones of animals unlike any living animals. These included tusks and unusually large teeth. They believed it still survived beyond the Great Lakes.