The Manis Mastodon site, 45 CA 218, is located on the Olympic Peninsula approximately 5 km south of Sequim, Washington (Figure 1). Specifically it occurs in the SE 1/4 of the NT 1/4 of Section 31 of Township 30 N, Range 3 W (Willamette Meridian).

The potential of the Manis site became apparent in August 1977 when the authors visited the property owned by Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel Manis to evaluate the significance of two fossil elephant tusks recovered by Mr. Manis while excavating for a small pond on his land. Near the point that was to be the northern edge of the pond, he encountered the tusks about 2 m below the surface in the trench he was excavating to define the perimeter of the future pond. These broken tusks apparently were from a single individual, and the largest segment recovered intact was nearly 2 m in length.