Loganbro1911 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 Height- 2 3/4 inches / 6.9cm Length- 5 1/2 inches / 13.9cm Width - 2 1/4 inches / 5.7cm Found In Azalia/Elizabethtown Indiana (Rural Bartholomew County) In a heavily Wooded Area, about 10 feet from a very small stream.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 Unfortunately, there are no bones or morphological symmetry. To my eye it appears to be a weathered rock with some possible marine inclusions. 6 ...How to Philosophize with a Hammer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 Welcome to the Forum. According to this geological bedrock map: Bartholomew County has outcrops of Mississippian, Devonian, and Silurian aged rocks. Mississippian age could have some vertebrate fossils,(the other ages would be too old,) but they do not fossilize like this. It would be bone material. Your item looks like a suggestively shaped rock. 1 3 Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM - APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 14 minutes ago, Kane said: Unfortunately, there are no bones or morphological symmetry. To my eye it appears to be a weathered rock with some possible marine inclusions. I agree. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 What you are seeing as a jaw line and an eye socket are merely suggestive shapes that are placed appropriately to feed into the phenomenon of pareidolia which allows our advanced pattern matching systems to recognize things from partial information. Our ability to do this is so finely honed that we often see things that are not actually there--faces in rock profiles, animals in cloud formations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia Actual fossils of animal skulls do not fossilize with the soft tissue and skin intact but are only the bones. Occasionally, they will be nicely articulated but more often they break apart into isolated fragments. Tim has shown above the ages of the rocks exposed in your area--mostly marine and generally from a time before most animals had big hard skulls to fossilize. Real fossil skulls will show distinctive bone texture and have bilateral symmetry and features consistent with skulls. A slight depression where an eye socket may go and a slight crease where the tip of a jaw might begin are not nearly enough for this one to be questionable--it is most certainly a suggestive rock. Many members enjoy keeping suggestive rocks ("fakers" we call them) that we find while out hunting fossils. It is a novelty but definitely not a fossil skull. I agree there is enough interesting texture on this rock to suggest there may be some worn invertebrate fossils displayed on the surface. Cheers. -Ken 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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