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Puppy Digs Up A 13,000-Year-Old Fossil
Jessica
12.11.18

Move over, Indiana Jones, an 8-month-old puppy near Seattle is everyone’s new favorite archaeologist.

via IFL Science
Source:
via IFL Science

When Kirk Lacewell saw his lab puppy Scout dig up a new plaything in the yard, he figured it was just a piece of wood or a rock. But Scout seemed particularly enamored of his the new find and carried the treasure around for days. That’s when Lacewell decided to take a closer look.

Komo News
Source:
Komo News

It turns out the relatively shallow hole Scout dug in his Whidbey Island backyard yielded not a rock or piece of petrified wood, but a 13,000-year-old fossilized mammoth tooth.

Komo News
Source:
Komo News
Komo News
Source:
Komo News

Puppies dig for all kinds of reasons, from instinct to boredom, but rarely do they make such finds!

Lacewell realized it was some sort of animal bone and decided to send photos of the find to local paleontologists at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum.

Komo News
Source:
Komo News

“All of the paleontologists over there agree it’s part of a woolly mammoth tooth,” he told Komo News.

Mammoths (sometimes referred to as wooly mammoths because specimens from Siberia have been found with their long hair still preserved in permafrost) were a type of Ice Age elephant. They were roughly 13 feet tall and around 22,000 pounds, and lived across much of North America and Northern Asia.

Mammoths were common in what is now the Washington region until they became extinct 4,000 years ago, likely due to some combination of overhunting and changing temperatures.

Everyone agrees that this specimen is roughly 13,000 years old. And while it’s a historic find for a dog, mammoth teeth are actually fairly common on Whidbey Island.

Teeth are some of the most common fossils because they are the most durable parts of the body and don’t continue to decay after death. And mammoth teeth are so ubiquitous that you can actually purchase them online.

While the museum wasn’t interested in acquiring the fossil for their own collection, Lacewell has put the tooth on display in his living room, which is sadly out of Scout’s reach (most of the time).

Komo News
Source:
Komo News

Alas, Scout is not the only dog with archaeological skills, or even the only dog to make an impressive find this year!

In September, Czech Radio reported that a pup named Monty made multiple discoveries while on a walk in the Orlické Mountains of northeastern Bohemia.

Monty dug up 13 sickles, 3 axes, some bracelets, and a pair of spearheads dating to the late European Bronze Age (1200BC – 500BC), which we can only imagine took quite some time and patience from his owner.

Science Alert
Source:
Science Alert

It’s a strange collection of things to find buried together and archaeologists of the human variety think it could have been part of a ritual burial.

While Monty’s find was rarer, the objects were only about 3,000 years old. They have since been donated to the regional government.

On the off chance that your dog takes up archaeology, it’s always best to do what these owners did and notify local authorities so that objects of value can be preserved.

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