Uncle Siphuncle Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 OK last year I found this bird cranium eroding out of a Pleistocene bank very close to the level where I dug out a mammoth tusk a few months before. It does not seem heavily mineralized if at all, nor do many of the bones I've found at this particular locality, but some of the other larger unmineralized horse and camel bones have had some degree of iron rich sand and gravel cemented to them. This bird skull is completely infilled with sand. All this being said, do you guys think this is Pleistocene or recent and would anyone care to take a stab at ID? Thanks. Grüße, Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas "To the motivated go the spoils." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nicholas Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 Excellent find! I wish I could help with the ID. Try using water on the filled inside, if it is easily removed I would say it was more recent. Pleistocene fossils are some times iffy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kauffy Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 you of all people will know if it is pleistocene or not, being familiar with the site and knowing what the fossils look like, and also the fact that you dug it out would suggest to me that what you have is a fossil. Your judgement is probably better than anyone on the computer looking at some pictures! If it is indeed a fossil (which i dont really doubt it could be) its a very nice specimin, it may be raptor? crow? i really cant tell... But nice find! "Turn the fear of the unknown into the excitment of possibility!"We dont stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 look, if you've determined that the strata is pleistocene, and the skull was clearly eroding out of it and not somehow recently squished into it, then you've answered your own question. i would think it's a fossil. we've discussed the mineralization thing before. i've noticed that everything seems to get rapidly and heavily mineralized from some locations and not much at all from others. i've personally decided that this has as much to do with the nature of the environment as it does the age of the bone in it. of course i'm no expert, but let's hypothesize a bit. bone gets buried in very dense, impermeable clay, in an area without a lot of dissolved silica in the water. maybe a somewhat acidic environment. the bone ends up a bit leached from the acidity over time, but how's it going to mineralize? i've decided this is the situation with some of the beaumont formation stuff. you can put a fossil with that clay on it in a bucket of water and days later the clay will not have dissolved at all. you have to use a brush to work at getting it off. plus, the area is now in a transgressive stage, so that formation wasn't laid down recently. and there are known pleistocene extinct fauna represented in the formation. same with your specimens. unless you have some reason to believe the strata is reworked, or that camels recently hung out there, then what's the other hypothesis? i think the skull is old. if auspex ends up saying it's from a species that's only been around for a couple of decades, then he's just trying to get it from you, so watch out. in other words, be woehr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyguy784 Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 What ever the age, I'd say it almost has to be from an Owl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bmorefossil Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 What ever the age, I'd say it almost has to be from an Owl. well hey we have someone else that knows their birds lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommabetts Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 Nice find!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 Dan, it's from a species that's only been around for a couple of decades; send it to me. (Kinda' busy with the shop right now, but hopefully I'll have a chance to find my Pleistocene bird skull ID guide today [no joke, I have one; it was published for archaeologists]). "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Siphuncle Posted December 21, 2008 Author Share Posted December 21, 2008 Hey Tracer I'm always a woehr, mua ha ha. Kudos to you for knowing how to pronounce my surname. All: I always eye unmineralized stream finds with some amount of skepticism if they lack adhering hard matrix or bone density. Although this bird skull was found high on bluff and barely peeking out of a muddy quagmire not far from the level where the tusk was found, the tusk had adhering sand and gravel that had to be scribed away. I tend to consider this a proof seal of age. As for the brid skull, since I've seen rains and flooding introduce overwashing with more recent material I'm not 100% sure of this thing's age. A brain cavity full of sand helps keep me from saying that it is ABSOLUTELY recent....the rear skull trauma looks kind of interesting too...death blow? post mortem scavanging damage? diagenetic? testament to some kid's marksmanship with his Red Ryder BB gun??? Grüße, Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas "To the motivated go the spoils." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 hmm, well, it isn't absolutely recent. i'm splitting the difference and saying it's 5000 ybp, give or take a month. which i suppose rules out a bird-stomping mammoth having been the cause of its demise. but on the other hand, it could not have been the result of a red ryder bb gun, in that if it had been, you would have also found a nearby subadult hominid skull with one eye orbit damaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fruitbat Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 I did a bit of cursory poking around through Osteology for the Archaeologist by Stanley J. Olsen...which contains a nice section on bird skulls. The best fit that I can find is one of the hawks. As for whether it is fossilized or not...tough question to answer. I generally rely on stratigraphy and association to determine a relative date for a 'fossil' that I'm not sure about. For example...I found a leg bone (tarsometatarsus, I believe) from a turkey in one of the local gravel pits in relatively close association with the remains of a very large Bison sp.cf. latifrons horn core. The bird bone had obviously been exposed to the elements and the preservation was virtually identical to that of the bison material. On the basis of those observations I concluded that the turkey material was likely contemporaneous with the bison material. The so-called 'burn test' for fossilization doesn't really help when dealing with specimens from the late Pleistocene/early Holocene boundary because the bone can be 10,000 years old and still have enough organic material left in it to generate a 'burnt hair' smell. Nice specimen, Dan. -Joe Illigitimati non carborundum Fruitbat's PDF Library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 Dan, take that one to a museum that has a bird collection. I believe it is a large woodpecker; possibly of the genus Campephilus. If so, it might be Ivory-billed Woodpecker!!! "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 Dan, take that one to a museum that has a bird collection.I believe it is a large woodpecker; possibly of the genus Campephilus. If so, it might be Ivory-billed Woodpecker!!! um, i can pretty much guarantee it's not an ivory-billed or ebony-billed or any kind of billed, because the whole front of it's face is gone. must have accidently pecked a stick of dynamite or sumpin. blew itself clear back into the pleistocene. but i agree - hie thee to the nearest bird musiceum and march right on in there (wait til it's open) and slam that noggin on the counter and announce loudly, "i'm here to see a man about a BOID!" (use a bugs bunny accent for this one). please advise how this matter plays out. i'm keepin' statistics on what percentage of people who follow my advice end up incarncenated. sincerely yours, tracer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nicholas Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 um, i can pretty much guarantee it's not an ivory-billed or ebony-billed or any kind of billed, because the whole front of it's face is gone. must have accidently pecked a stick of dynamite or sumpin. blew itself clear back into the pleistocene. but i agree - hie thee to the nearest bird musiceum and march right on in there (wait til it's open) and slam that noggin on the counter and announce loudly, "i'm here to see a man about a BOID!" (use a bugs bunny accent for this one). please advise how this matter plays out. i'm keepin' statistics on what percentage of people who follow my advice end up incarncenated. sincerely yours, tracer Tracer you have a way with words, I wish I knew anything about birds at all that could help. It does remind me of a gull but then again Auspex knows best in this category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted December 21, 2008 Share Posted December 21, 2008 ...the whole front of it's face is gone. must have accidently pecked a stick of dynamite or sumpin. blew itself clear back into the pleistocene... A common condition for woodpeckers that lived in the petrified forest; the agatized wood takes a terrible toll. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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