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Hi everyone! I'm now living just outside Saskatoon and I am working with the University of Saskatchewan's Museum of Natural Sciences. The Saskatoon area is largely undescribed in paleontological literature, so I have been visiting various sites around the city in the hope of finding some fossils. I found these specimens in sediment exposed by construction excavation. I have several other bone fragments from this site, all exhibiting mineral staining, but they are likely ribs and vertebrae which are difficult to identify to the species level. The first is clearly a mammal limb bone. I believe it to be the distal end of a tibia. It is heavily water-worn, but I believe I can still make out the impressions of the double trochlea. I know that a reliable method of identifying tibias to either Perissodactyla or Artiodactyla is to observe the impressions of the double trochlea (credit to this thread for helping me with this!): 

HorseTibia1.thumb.jpg.c4080d15e858d77dfb0ae64a253e01fb.jpg

HorseTibia2.thumb.jpg.6dae761293418eae59f5bdcc9019c927.jpg

I think I can make out the impressions, though I'm not sure if they are at an angle or if they truly run fore and aft. I would greatly appreciate some more input on this and some fresh eyes! I've included a (somewhat crude) rendering to help illustrate what I think I see.

HorseTibia4.thumb.jpg.44829472ea910363c3937fe6fd4e5665.jpg

If it does belong to the Perissodactyla group, I can confidently assign it to Equus indet., establishing the specimen as a fossil. The second object looks and feels like a fragment of mammoth ivory.

MammothIvory1.thumb.jpg.ad0ff8a5d4ae4cba5170b0da8ba33ecf.jpg

MammothIvory2.thumb.jpg.31cfa42903182e4bf78e233508365463.jpg

MammothIvory3.thumb.jpg.0948acf4e899618c030bfd778a56c727.jpg

It has the distinctive bark-like outer texture and it is almost identical in most regards to confirmed fragments of mammoth tooth I have. I don't know what the dark substance is on the underside. I have no idea how something that looks so biological could be produced by a construction site, so I strongly suspect it is at least something organic. I don't know how helpful photos are in identifying mammoth tooth fragments, but if an identification is possible I would really appreciate it! If I can identify either one or both of these specimens as Pleistocene fossils, I can designate the site as a fossiliferous location and continue my work in the area with more confidence. Thank you all!

 

 

 

 

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