Richard Cerutti, whose mastodon discovery shook up the archaeology world, dies at 78
by Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times
Nov 06, 2019
4 minutes
Richard Cerutti knew from an early age that he wanted to be an explorer of the past. He was not yet 10 when he joined his father at a construction site in La Jolla, Calif., and began collecting fossilized clams and snails more than 30 million years old.
What began as a curiosity became an obsession that would one day lead to Cerutti's name being attached to perhaps the most contentious discoveries in North American archaeology when he found in a highway-widening project the tusk of a mastodon that would eventually bear his name.
Respected for his keen eye and a delicate touch
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