Mastodon skeleton (1801), by Rembrandt Peale (1778 - 1860). Peale was the second son of artist Charles Willson Peale. He helped his father excavate two mastodon skeletons in 1801, from which this drawing derives. Peale's talent for showmanship made the mastodon into a national sensation. Other extraordinary fossil finds followed in Europe as well as North America, and by the 1820s the public had become aware of a fantastic prehistoric world inhabited by extinct giant animals.