Requesting Identification Of This Item Found In The River Thames, London,england

[mudlark76]

[Kosmoceras]

Can we have some more pictures of this item from various angles? Looks mammal like to me.

Regards,

[mudlark76]

[Xiphactinus]

You have a single plate from a mammoth tooth. Cool!

[mudlark76]

Many thanks. That's an interesting thought...Mudlark

[Auspex]

I agree with Xiphactinus: a delaminated plate from a mammoth tooth.

[painshill]

I wonder if that's actually from a Straight Tusked Elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) rather than a mammoth. Both would be rare finds in the Thames gravels, but elephant is perhaps more likely than mammoth. How far up the Thames was it found?

Edited June 6, 2013 by painshill

[mikecable]

I just think that a fossil from the Thames is too cool. While some may think Texas is an exotic locale, I think the same of England. I've been there once. I have a lovely ex-wife from London (somehow we managed not to kill each other, and still get along today--which probably says more about the patience and kindness of a good British woman than anything about the foibles of a West Texas man). But a fossil from the River Thames is awesome. Nice find.

[mudlark76]

Greetings Painshill, Thank you for that. - Above Vauxhall, so well up the tidal reaches. ? Kempton Park Terraces? Mudlark

[mudlark76]

A couple of folk over here seem to think the tooth may be an incisor from an extinct Giant Beaver. Based, I believe, on the curvature of the tooth. Would anyone care to comment? Mudlark76

[Auspex]

A couple of folk over here seem to think the tooth may be an incisor from an extinct Giant Beaver. Based, I believe, on the curvature of the tooth. Would anyone care to comment? Mudlark76

In no way does it resemble a beaver's incisor.

Please visit this link: LINK

Whether from Mammoth or Palaeoloxodon, I cannot say, but it is an individual plate from a tooth of one of them. In life, the plates were laminated together with cementum; it is not at all unusual for them to come apart over time and be found as partial teeth or individual plates.

[painshill]

Much of London sits on a complex series of gravels, sands, silts and clays arising from the diversion of the Thames to its present course by glacial ice. That process began around 450,000 years ago. The River at one time ran much further north and exited to the North Sea at Bradwell. It was blocked completely in Hertfordshire during the worst of the Pleistocene ice age, causing a large lake to form, which ultimately forced a new path further south.

Most of the gravels in the Thames Valley are no older than around 50,000 years but also contain much older fossil fragments in relatively poor states of preservation from secondary deposition. There are various megafauna in those gravels - hippopotamus and elephant remains have been found beneath Trafalgar Square, woolly rhino remains beneath Battersea Power Station, woolly mammoth bones under the Strand and below the Old St Paul’s Cathedral among others.

But in general the City and its river hasn’t produced much in the way of Mammoth/Elephant remains since the 1800’s although there have been some notable finds in less disturbed strata further down towards the estuary – such as the relatively complete Ilford and Aveley mammoths in Essex in 1824 and 1964 respectively. And of course once you get to the North Sea coasts, mammoth remnants are relatively common finds – especially on the beaches.

It’s not easy to distinguish between say Palaeoloxodon and Mammuthus when all you have is a detached plate, except to say that the former is generally a more common find (although both would be relatively rare) because it tends to be more a more recent fossil with a better survival chance. Here’s an intact Palaeoloxodon antiquus out of the Barling Gravels in Essex (approx. 20,000 years):

[pic from Fossils-UK]

Given the scarcity of such fossils, there was therefore a great deal of excitement at the London NHM a couple of months ago when bone and tusk remnants plus the relatively intact tooth below were found beneath Putney Bridge during excavation work for the new Thames Tunnel project. The tooth seems to be woolly mammoth.

[pic from Wandsworth Guardian]

I would think the NHM might be interested in seeing what you found and could potentially give you a more precise ID.

(I’ve also attached a pdf summary of the “Latton mammoths” – 200 Mammuthus trognotherii with possible butchery marks – found in Wiltshire in 1998 that you may find interesting.)

Latton Mammoths.pdf

[BoneValleyBoy]

Mammoth tooth

[sward]

Here's an example of a similar mammoth tooth plate:

[mudlark76]

Many thanks once more to you all. Very useful. To Painshill-Thanks, I saw the Wandsworth piece too but noted it was dated April 1st!!

mudlark76

[painshill]

Many thanks once more to you all. Very useful. To Painshill-Thanks, I saw the Wandsworth piece too but noted it was dated April 1st!!

mudlark76

Yes... there was a lot of confusion at the time about whether this was or was not an April Fool's story - not helped by the fact that the local newspaper embellished the story with the usual rubbish about DNA and cloning. Some reports mentioned other bones and tusks. Some didn't. All very unhelpful and I'm still not 100% sure - although the find wasn't reported in the NHM bulletins as far as I know (or at least not yet). If it was an April Fool's joke it was an ill-advised choice of topic given that mammoth fossils including teeth have been reported from the London gravels (albeit rarely) in the past. For your find, my money would still be on Palaeoloxodon rather than Mammuthus taking frequency of finds into consideration.

Edited June 9, 2013 by painshill

[Indy]

You have a single plate from a mammoth tooth. Cool!

KUDOS !!

I would have never thought about a single mammoth tooth plate !!

[mudlark76]

Thankyou Auspex for that marvellous link! What an amazing array of teeth and bits thereof! I am in totally new territory here so that site is a gold mine for me. 1) Had no idea the Mammoth teeth of my childhood museum visits were laminated. 2) am amazed at the condition of my find which was just washing about on the foreshore at low tide. 3) Now need to convince the 'unbelievers' that it has nothing to do with Trogontherium cuvieri.

Mudlark76

[mudlark76]

May I ask for some more advice please? I currently have the find in damp acid free tissue sealed in a plastic box as I am concerned that, like so many other toothy objects, (usually Medieval wild boar tusks), it may splinter as it dries out. Does this kind of object tend to do so and if so how might it be prevented by a non-scientist without a laboratory? Sorry to be a pain...Mudlark76