Fake Fossil Skulls

[mikeymig]

I started my collection of authentic Ice Age (Pleistocene) skulls back in the early 90s by chance. The first few skulls came from a well known and respectable fossil dealers private collection in 1991. I had no plans on adding to the collection until I was in Tucson around 1997. I happen to be in this fossil dealers room when I deal went bad between the seller and a group of buyers from Japan. The buyers agreed to purchase the group of five skulls for several thousands of dollars but then dropped their price drastically at the last minute and in doing so insulated the dealer. The dealer was so upset he offered the skulls to me for a few hundred dollars right in front of these buyers. I was in the right place at the right time and now I have a collection eleven Ice Age skulls from North America. I have had Cave Bear& Bison antiquus skulls as well as Mammoth, Horse, Wolf, Mastodon and other extinct Pleistocene fossils in my collection at one time. I sold or traded those fossil in favor of keeping the extant fossil skulls as a reminder of what North America was like before man came here (my skulls are Middle Pleistocene).

I have been troubled in the past and have contacted eBay several times about the listing and selling of fake Ice Age skulls on their site and I see they are back. The skulls in question came from a dealer that I know personally and he was the only vendor that I deleted from the databanks at The World of Science Inc. when I was their geology buyer. He will take recent skulls to Muskrat, Mink, Raccoon, Beaver, Coyote, and other fur bearing mammals and "age" them. The "Ice Age" Muskrat skulls he tried to sell us had hair and maggot cases still inside the braincase. These fakes will often come with their lower jaws and the locality will normally be Bonner Springs Kansas. This person used to put the fakes in a sand/glue matrix with the jaws of the animal often agape and the price is a dead give away. On eBay I see these fakes selling for $200-$300 each on average and at shows for close to $500. I wouldn't sell any of my skulls for a few hundred dollars and feel good about it. Here's a well written piece from another website that talks about these fakes.

http://www.paleodirect.com/fakefossilskulls1.htm

mikey

[fossilized6s]

Thanks for looking out. Id love to see your collection! Do you have any in the 'Gallery'?

[Xiphactinus]

Agreed - those "Bonner Springs" bones are not Pleistocene. The Kansas River fossils are never articulated. You will never find the jaws with the skull. I also recognize the "matrix" they are in. That's fossiliferous clay from Coldwater Creek here in St. Louis County. (That is the only part of the "fossil" this is indeed Pleistocene.) I know a guy from St. Louis that was collecting buckets of the clay to sell to someone to make displays for their fossils. Looks like the clay was used for this instead.

[mikeymig]

There's a photo of my collection in my gallery - Mikey's Green Room.

[rylawz]

show some pics of the mammoth and mastodon please!

[Auspex]

Notice any similarities? <LINK to image source>

Edited March 5, 2015 by Auspex

[piranha]

Notice any similarities?

That's one of them, there was another outlet for the "Bonner Springs" skulls claiming the 'fossils' from the site had been carbon-dated to 8,000-35,000 years old:

LINK 1

LINK 2

[AncientEarth]

Stories about fakes and the people who propagate them just kill me.

Similarly...

I had a guy buy several hundreds of spino teeth from me once, I asked if he was restoring a skull, to which he was fairly vague and plainly just said no and that he was restoring a smaller jaw section. I left it alone, figured maybe he scored a specimen from Kem-Kem in Tucson or something.

A few months went by and I started to see "Spinosaurus jaws" for sale once a week from the ebay seller he commissioned to sell for him, some placed into matrix, most freely exposed in a single lower jaw section. They were single sided, modern deer, lower mandibles with the spino teeth drilled into the tooth sockets, then painted/patina to look like the red/orange sands of Kem-Kem.

I'd imagine he knew of this fellow who was just a few hours West of him on I-70 and taught him some "tricks of the trade". One of which must have been how to disappear and not pay for stuff. I let it go and went on with life, the "vendor" eventually ended up burning other bridges in the paleo world and moving onto baseball cards/postcards, he passed away a couple of years ago, and so, life goes on. IF you think you purchased one of these jaws, PM me and I will disclose this persons information.

In Tucson for the last few years I have seen Moroccans import dog/coyote skulls in this same fashion as the above fossils and hoards from south Asia, painted gold and silver for, I assume, gift shops.

[mikeymig]

When I see these "fossils" online, at shows, and in stores I'm awash with emotions. All at once I feel anger, anxiety, frustration, hilarity, and disgust. These fakes hurt my specimens and puts me on the defense when I show them to non experts or anyone who isn't familiar with Pleistocene fossils.

mikey

Auspex - You can see the cut marks on the mink skull you provided.

Edited May 5, 2014 by mikeymig

[jpevahouse]

The ability for anyone to easily sell bones and fossils through the internet has created an pretty chaotic environment for the collector/buyer. There are dealers who sell fake fossils. Then there are the novice collectors and non collectors who simply don't know what they're selling and misrepresent their product. Buyers are sometimes no better skilled at identification so lots of misrepresented fossils entered collections.

In the world of the internet all bones identified as Pleistocene are 10,000 years old though the era lasted 2.5 million years. Did no animals live in the Pleistocene era before 10,000 years ago? Stuff like that makes me question the competency of online auction sellers. Sure, there are problems with the honesty of some dealers but the average online auction seller spreads an enormous amount of questionable fossils too. Though maybe from ignorance not dishonesty the damage is done when bones enter collections which are not old or fossils.

There's a rule that says once something is defined it becomes truth. Once bison and other bones enter collections labeled as fossils collectors are going to be hesitant to question them and people who see or eventually buy them are going to be more likely to accept them as real fossils. There is the danger of not questioning.

Attached a photo of recent finds at Big Brook, Colts Neck, NJ, a Cretaecous deposit. Cretaecous marine fossils, contemporary deer mandible and not really too old femur of a small mammal. I could easily sell the femur as Pleistocene on eBay because of it's appearance but it's simply not very old.... Point made..

[AncientEarth]

I think if you soaked those bones in water, the contemporary bones would turn back yellow/white and the others will remain their fossilized coloration.

[Auspex]

...Sure, there are problems with the honesty of some dealers but the average online auction seller spreads an enormous amount of questionable fossils too. Though maybe from ignorance not dishonesty the damage is done when bones enter collections which are not old or fossils...

Very true. Add that some of the compositors and outright falsifiers do not understand that what they do is entirely wrong, because they do not appreciate that authenticity is essential so some buyers; they are making attractive decorative accents.

Once these objects enter the product stream, they (and their misinformation) are forever. Knowledge and skepticism are the last shield of those who care.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

"folgerized" skulls...

[Missourian]

Bonner Springs.... I'm familiar with the Kaw River material, so I lol'd.

[RichW9090]

AncientEarth, I'd love to have a picture of the Spino jaw made from a deer jaw - for my files.

Rich

[Carcharodontosaurus]

AncientEarth, I'd love to have a picture of the Spino jaw made from a deer jaw - for my files.

Rich

I'd love to have pictures too, just to see what it looks like. Even as fakes, they must be pretty interesting.

It is also pretty easy to make a bone look old by soaking it in tea for a few days. With this method a Holocene dog digit becomes a Pleistocene dire wolf digit.

[AncientEarth]

Rich + Carch et al.

Here is the first jaw he made back in 07, sent to me a year later after I asked if he was making those and he added these comments :

Notice in this picture of the small jaws I am making up, these teeth had to be narrow, as there isn't much room where the original teeth were ... I'm going to do some with the fish teeth.

And he did do the same with the fish jaws, however I cannot turn up those photos.



Other's it looks like he either removed or just made his own fake "Rib-a-Saurus" teeth in plastered sand.

[jpevahouse]

I wonder about those Moroccian mosasaur and sharks teeth and jaws in matrix easily bought on the internet? Bought a couple for my brother. They can be bought cheaply, maybe too cheap. The teeth are real but I was left wondering if the teeth were cemented to a piece of sandstone. Last time I'll buy a fossil from Morocco.

Edited May 8, 2014 by jpevahouse

[jpc]

We were donated a moroccan mosasur tooth in matrix with jaw frag. We CT scanned it and sure enough, the CT showed without a doubt that the tooth and "jaw" frag were separate pieces and that both had been set into a sand"stone" matrix.

[snolly50]

I once "dissected" a single rooted tooth on matrix. This mosasaur tooth from Morocco was very attractive and cost very little at a tourist shop in a resort area. Digging into the matrix (consolidated sand) I exposed the "back" of the root. The portion that showed was a weathered light brown color with texture. The hidden portion was bright white and smooth. The root was entirely fabricated from plaster and capped with an authentic crown.

[PaleoDirect]

Fraud never seems to take a holiday. Apparently, boredom got the best of the faker of the modern skulls on matrix.

Now there are modern pinecones put on the same matrix. At $65 each, a walk in the woods can make you really rich!!!! They are purportedly sold as Pleistocene - Holocene which is a feeble attempt to sanitize the fraud. Sadly, they are sure to circulate on Ebay and shows as they move through the market.

LINK

They don't even look old but I guess some people could be fooled.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Auspex

[mikeymig]

I'm half tempted to duplicate these horrible fakes by creating the same matrix but adding things like old calculators/cellphones and call them Mid-Holocene.

mikey

[Scylla]

I'm half tempted to duplicate these horrible fakes by creating the same matrix but adding things like old calculators/cellphones and call them Mid-Holocene.

mikey

Oh great, Mikey. Thats all we need for the young earthers to go nuts!

[Auspex]

Fraud never seems to take a holiday. Apparently, boredom got the best of the faker of the modern skulls on matrix. ...

A seller's description states:

"These cones are found in River Terrace Bog Deposits. They are found carbonized and have to be frozen after being found so they don't disintegrate.. they are then saturated with a thin Paleobond for stabilization. They are set into a conglomerate matrix and display very nicely!"

Is this not plausible? I do agree that embedding them in artificial matrix is (to me) undesirable.

[PaleoDirect]

Looking closely at the photos, you can see the thin dried and shriveled surfaces of a fresh pine cone. The "carbonized" portions are where the dye (wood stain concentrate pigment) absorbed the greatest.

Water expands when you freeze it. When it gets into the cells of a substance like a fossil, it actually explodes it on a cellular level, destroying it. This is what happens to dinosaur bones, for instance, then they are subjected to winter surface exposure in places like Montana. I never in my life heard of such a process where freezing a fossil (other than if found in an original frozen state such as Siberian tundra megafauna flesh) is a valid step.

This whole thing is a complete farce. The matrix used is IDENTICAL to the matrix used in the fake skulls and so is the dye, hence my reason for appending it to this thread. No doubt this is from the same culprit.

Edited June 13, 2014 by PaleoDirect.com