Horse Upper Molar?

[Jimbo1444]

i found this on my place in the creek bank. the research i have done so far strongly suggests a horse upper molar. It does NOT apper to be fossilzed which is what is perplexing me. where did it come from? it was not laying in the creek bed but was about 8" below grade sticking out of the bank. this spring's heavy rain caused high, fast-moving water in the creek. it ate away the bank in several places, one of which was where this tooth was protruding. no other bones were there. how do you suppose it came to be there?

Jimbo1444

[Auspex]

Over the course of a hundred years, a creek's bed snakes back and forth; the tooth was probably left on a bank and then buried where you found it, then the creek worked its way back.

[tracer]

it isn't possible just from looking at it to tell how old it is. and as auspex said, things near waterways tend to get buried at some point. and you are correct regarding what it is. it has a bit of a leached look to it that indicates it had been there awhile. the color changes with "fossil" teeth in a way have as much to do with the bacteria and oxygen and minerals present in the environment of deposition as they do with the age. the specimen was about 95% or so inorganic mineral (hydroxylapatite) before it was buried, so "fossilization" of stuff like that tends to be more replacement of existing mineral rather than a high degree of permineralization that happens with more porous material.

[Jimbo1444]

it isn't possible just from looking at it to tell how old it is. and as auspex said, things near waterways tend to get buried at some point. and you are correct regarding what it is. it has a bit of a leached look to it that indicates it had been there awhile. the color changes with "fossil" teeth in a way have as much to do with the bacteria and oxygen and minerals present in the environment of deposition as they do with the age. the specimen was about 95% or so inorganic mineral (hydroxylapatite) before it was buried, so "fossilization" of stuff like that tends to be more replacement of existing mineral rather than a high degree of permineralization that happens with more porous material.

is there any way to tell if it is modern? i am not aware of any ancient horse species native to indiana, am i wrong about that?

[tracer]

it looks to be from the extant genus equus, but size references in the photos are always good because they help us keep from making "duh" sorts of errors on identifications. in addition to morphological differences, there is a fairly large size difference between the fully developed molars of equus and some of the earlier equids.

p.s. - your original question regarding how the molar came to be where it was and why there weren't other bones around is possibly part of an area of study of taphonomy called biostratinomy. otherwise, it may be primarily due to fluid dynamics.

[Gray Ghost 27]

This is a 2 1/4 in equus molar found in North Myrtle Beach, SC. I'm not a palentologist but as I understand it horses populated North America up until about 10,000 years ago and the Spanish reintroduced them when they came over.

[tracer]

yes, that's a lower molar. and equus was very widespread, but apparently very tasty, so at some point did need to be reintroduced here for transportation purposes (and emergency rations, i suppose). for that reason, if you figure your specimens look more than say...a thousand years old, then yer good to kinda assume you can add an ice age melt to that number.

[Jimbo1444]

it looks to be from the extant genus equus, but size references in the photos are always good because they help us keep from making "duh" sorts of errors on identifications. in addition to morphological differences, there is a fairly large size difference between the fully developed molars of equus and some of the earlier equids.

p.s. - your original question regarding how the molar came to be where it was and why there weren't other bones around is possibly part of an area of study of taphonomy called biostratinomy. otherwise, it may be primarily due to fluid dynamics.

here are a couple shots for size reference. also, the creek channel there is about 4 feet deep. it is dry this time of year so when standing in it the specimen was about chest high protruding from the recently eroded bank. 6 to 8 inches of compacted soil covered it. this area is along the white river in southern indiana so flooding is not unusual. is there an easy way to tell if it is an ancient vs. modern speciman? Thanks for your help.

[tracer]

not really. i mean, i think a lot of us that have seen a number of environments of deposition and a lot of bone and teeth start to feel like we have a sense of whether most of our finds are fossils are not, and since we're never proven wrong, we kinda get internally cocky about that sort of thing. but the reality is that the only way you know is if you found it in unreworked strata of known age and/or if you've had the specimen tested. so having said all that, my sense would be that it's from a more recent horse but i certainly wouldn't sign a certificate of modernity for it.

as far as the depth at which you found it, the ground above it could have gone up and down twenty times since it was deposited. i have no way of knowing whether the bank was much higher previously or has just had eight inches of soil deposited on top of the tooth since it came to rest there. remember one big thing - you never get into the same creek or river twice. they constantly change, sometimes dramatically. lots of places all the road bridges are thirty feet above the beds of creeks, for a very good reason.