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Inscrutable Peace-River Doodad: It Came From The Rancholabrean


MammothPaleoGuy

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I've got an odd thing. This vaguely torus-shaped object came in a ten pound bag of Peace River gravel. The gravel is heavily time-averaged and contains Miocene shark-teeth and Pleistocene mammal teeth. My object certainly doesn't look to be part of any tetrapod's skeleton, and while it could be an invert I've got a feeling that it doesn't have any biological origin at all. I'm pretty sure it's just an oddly-shaped 'leverite,' but it looks enough like a man-made thing to arouse my curiosity. Certainly the central hole has a smooth-bored appearance. It looks for all the world like a bead -- pareidolia, probably.

The doings of man don't generally hold much of an interest for me, but given where this came from, it seems like it could hail from that brief time in North American history that provides grist for the mills of paleontology and archeology -- the latest Rancholabrean. Did Clovis (or pre-Clovis, if you perfer) people even make beads? If so, do they look like this? In the pictures below the lines on the grid are 2 mm apart. We're looking at a small object here. I'm probably only fooling myself, but I'm curious. Take a look below:

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Dont what to say.I had a string of them with some shell beds in the Peace River.I put a piece of metal and scooped them in order with a picture.I re-strung them as Indian Beads.Some find 1 or 2 and call them worm casings.You make the call.

Bear-dog.

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Fossil Cheerios! I have 2 mason jars full of them. probably a couple thousand. Very common in the Arcadia area of the Peace River and it's tributaries in that area. Not found north of Zolfo Springs. at all. I would ask one of the invertebre guys at the museum in GNV if you need a true ID. I have been thinking they are broken pieces of long chrinoid stems, but never followed up on it. They are more common in the small gravel beds than the little shark teeth in many places. If any of the experts want a few hundred to study, let me know...

"A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life".

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Thanks Meg; I'm used to Ordovician crinoids, which these don't resemble closely. I've never really looked at any more recent than that, so it would never have occured to me. I'll have to check into that. Any other votes?

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