While hunting in western Texas, a deer hunter found a strange object on a creek bed. Suspecting that it might be a fossil, he took a photo and showed it to the ranch manager.
“I'm skeptical,” O2 Ranch Manager Will Juett said in a statement from Sul Ross State University. “I think it might be just an old tree stump, but imagine how great it would be if he was right.”
Deer Hunter is right, discovering is not just great, because it is more than just any fossil. An interdisciplinary researcher identified it as a mammoth tusk, an extremely rare discovery for West Texas.
After seeing the hunter’s photos, Juyette contacted Bryon Schroeder, director of the Center for Big Bend Research (CBBS) and archaeologist Erika Blecha. In turn, they contacted Haley Bjorklund, a CBBS collaborator and graduate student at the University of Kansas. After two other anthropologists joined their efforts, the researchers met on the ranch to investigate what the hunters found. The team quickly identified the specimen as mammoth tusks.
“I couldn't believe it when they confirmed what they found,” Juent said. Unfortunately, the tusks of the mammoth were isolated, meaning that researchers did not find other mammoths still exist. Over two days, the team wrapped the ivory in plaster-covered burlap and established a safe frame to safely transport it to the SRSU. Now, researchers plan to study ivory, including radiocarbon dating, a standard technique used to determine the age of organic materials to estimate when mammoths live.
“Then the locals who wrote their doctoral dissertation found a [a mammoth tusk] In Fort Stockton in the 1960s, Schroeder said the specimen is currently the only mammoth tusk in the cross-pecos region of Texas. [in carbon dating] At that time. Now we can lower it to a narrower range in 500 years. ”
Although the statement does not name a specific mammoth species, ivory may belong to the Colombian mammoth, the far-flung cousin of the more familiar wool mammoth. The fluffy elephant animal can reach 13 feet (nearly 4 meters) in height and weighs about 10 tons.
The Columbian mammoth lived in areas of North America, including modern Texas, and then became extinct with many other Ice Age mammals 11,700 years ago. While the reason behind the disappearance of the iconic Megafauna of the Ice Age remains a controversial topic, scientists often cite climate change, and human hunting may have played a role.
“Seeing the ivory of the mammoth has just brought the ancient world to life.” “Now, I can't help but imagine that huge animals wandering on the hills of the O2 pasture.
