12-Year-Old Boy Finds Weird Object In River That Stumps Archaeologists
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Sometimes it feels like we know everything there is to know about the world. But then scientists make a breakthrough: we see gravitational waves for the first time, as we did in 2017. We learn giant squids are, in fact, real (even that took 'til 2004). In the past decade we even learned how to modify our own genes.
Understanding ourselves and the past is not a task limited to the experts, however; a 12 year-old boy playing in an Amish-country river — not an academic or scientist — made a discovery that was truly novel. While he didn't split the atom, he gave archaeologists a chance to glimpse into the past.
The find was made on a Hepner family vacation. Twelve-year-old Jackson and the rest of his clan had set off to Millersburg, Ohio, an area located in Amish country, where they had a particularly magical place to stay.
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There, one of Jackson's relatives, Jason Nies, was an innkeeper at Honey Inn in Millersville. The family was elated to partake in the peaceful country activities: admiring the gardens, playing with farm animals, and exploring the forest.
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And this latter activity led to Jackson's unbelievable discovery. While strolling, the Hepners happened upon a bridge running over a river. A view so picturesque only meant one thing for the family: time for a family photo-op.
Once the photo was taken, the Hepners settled down to enjoy the beautiful place they'd already become comfortable with. An energized Jackson, always appreciative of nature and the outdoors, ran off explore the river below.
Suddenly, in the midst of his surveying, the 12 year-old stumbled upon a strange sight: Something was submerged in the river. This was no rock — or at least not any rock he'd ever seen. He took a closer look.
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Upon further inspection, Jackson Hepner was completely stunned. With suspicions running through his mind, he quickly dug the bizarre-looking item from its hiding place and ran back to show his family the exciting find.
And his family was the perfect audience. As inkeeper Jason Nies put it, Jackon's "dad and his uncle are both really into natural history and understanding nature. They quickly jumped online and were Googling it." What was this thing?
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After doing extensive online research with his family, the Hepners came to an astonishing conclusion: what Jackson had found definitely wasn't a rock — it was a tooth! Massive and fragmented, the tooth, research revealed, clearly belonged to one of two creatures.
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The first option? The tooth was from a long-dead mastodon, an extinct elephant-like species that lived in North America as recently as ten thousand years ago. The other option excited the Hepners, too.
Was it a mammoth tooth? While mammoths and mastodon were similar, the former was the larger of the two. They could grow to be as tall as fifteen feet, weighed six tons, and used their ridged teeth for grinding up hard-to-chew seeds and leaves. The Hepners wanted answers.
Needing clarification about just what exactly the giant tooth really belonged to, the Hepners reached out to expert geologist Dale Gnidovec. They anxiously waited for a response.
Finally, after weeks of anticipation, the archaeologists got back to the Hepners with the jaw-dropping truth: Jackson's discovery was indeed from a mammoth! The boy couldn't believe he had found a relic from such a fascinating Ice Age-era animal. But there was a problem.
Of course, Jackson was elated about the find and couldn’t wait to share the discovery with everyone he knew. Unfortunately, he didn't actually have the tooth any longer. He had an idea how to fix that issue.
Because the scientists who had tested the tooth were still in possession of it, he wrote a letter. “I would like to have my tooth back in my hands as soon as possible," he explained. "I want to show my friends."
While Jackson waited for answers, the Honey Inn posted on its blog, "We’re thrilled to be the site of a unique and special find that proves there could be some hidden treasures among the rolling hills of Ohio’s Amish Country still waiting to be uncovered."
Jason Nies also had something to add: “It’s just a neat find. It’s not every day you get to touch and feel and see a mammoth tooth!” Well said, Jason. The whole family couldn't wait to share all they'd learned about mammoths.
Interestingly enough, rather than a patriarchal society, these great beasts would follow the oldest female of the group, allowing her to lead and make decisions. In fact, lack of a female would put the male mammoths in grave danger. He hoped he'd found a mammoth tooth.
Mammoth teeth, he learned, weren't the only attention-grabbing thing about mammoths. They had tusks as long as 14-feet that they used to fight, dig, and find mates. Tusks can also be used to determined a mammoth's age.
Astoundingly, research has shown that mammoths lived an average of seventy years—that's close to a human's life expectancy! However they did differ from humans in one crucial way that has taken experts aback.
While woollies were known to eat the likes of buttercups and aquatic shrubs, they unfortunately were prime prey to several different animals. That was just the luck of the draw for those big, meaty herbivores.
And while people were known to snack on these gentle giants, it was once thought to be a mild, pacifistic feast of sorts. What does that mean? Were they friends and food?
Well, it was originally believed that humans would wait for mammoths to be maimed or deceased, or scared them into mucky swamps, before devouring them. Overall, the human-mammoth accord wasn't thought to be a violent one involving gore and bloodshed.
In November 2019, Mexican archaeologists unveiled a strange finding they stumbled upon in the city of Tultepec, Estado de Mexico, pertaining to our meager knowledge of the wild woolly mammoths.
The archaeologists, who were researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, may have been the first to discover man-made pits created approximately 15,000 years ago to trap woolly mammoths.
See, inside these two pits, the researchers found approximately 824 bones from at least 14 mammoths sprawled about. After long speculation of said skeletal remnants, the archaeologists came to the conclusion that these were "hunting pits."
These traps were about 5.5 feet deep and 82 feet in diameter, which had the researchers inferring that hunters had possibly used torches to back the fuzzy elephants into the pits; that is until they found peculiar markings on one of the ancient woolly skulls.
On one of the woolly mammoth craniums, the researchers found indents caused by spear wounds, which indicates a more direct form of aggression toward these massive herbivores. Poor, helpless beasts.
"It represents a watershed, a touchstone for how we previously imagined groups of hunter-gatherers interacted with these enormous herbivores," stated Pedro Francisco Sánchez Nava, the National Archaeology Coordinator at the the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
"This is evidence of direct attacks on mammoths. In Tultepec we can see there was the intention to hunt and make use of the mammoths," Luis Córdova Barradas, the head of the five-person excavation team, stated.
But the very first signs of these mammoth death traps came to light in January 2019, as the land was excavated for ten months with intent for it to become a landfill. This was before anyone knew it was holding woolly mammoth leftovers.
Córdova Barradas explained that back when the traps were built, there must've been at least six herds of mammoths roaming the land. Why is that important? Well, further digging expeditions in the area could unveil even more mammoth pits!
Interestingly, the bones weren't randomly spread out, they were seemingly symbolically organized. "They must have considered it brave and ferocious, showing their respect with this particular arrangement," said Córdova Barradas. Perhaps it was a woolly shrine.
Though the discovery was an exciting one for the researchers, Córdova Barradas made it clear that there was still much to research about the mammoth remains, as they were unsure of how hunters possibly made use of the colossal bones.
Their questioning specifically pertained to the mammoth shoulder blades, as for some reason, the pit only included right shoulder blades. “The left shoulder blades are missing – why?” Córdova Barradas asked, clearly intrigued.
While they had a long road of research ahead of them, Smithsonian Magazine explained that experts have theorized that “mammoth rib bones were used to cut away the meat." And since skulls were left flipped upside down, it's possible that hunters would gobble mammoth tongues.
But aside from the array of mammoth bones, the archaeologists also identified pieces from a jawbone and spine of a camel, as well as a horse's tooth, in the area. This had Adam N. Rountrey of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan suspicious.
In an interview with The New York Times, Rountrey stated that “There has been debate about whether the remains represent hunted animals or scavenged natural deaths,” clearly dismantling the belief regarding aggressive mammoth attacks. So the pits don't necessarily exhibit the remnants of spiritual mammoth sacrifices.
While we may never know for sure how those hungry Neanderthals interacted with the elephant-like mammals, astonishing research has revealed much about the woolly mammoths' baffling extinction. To be frank, the fall of this gentle beast is disquieting.
When we think of the woolly mammoths crossing the Arctic, they feel too far out of reach to even imagine. While the last woolly gave up the ghost thousands of years ago, their needs were quite similar to the needs of present-day herbivores.
However, there's lot we didn't know about these monstrous mammals. Most of the woolly mammoths called the Arctic's mainland to be home, but a group of them resided elsewhere.
Wrangel Island — just off the coast of eastern Siberia — held a bundle of woolly mammoths, and for one reason or another (which we'll get to), they outlived the woollys living in the Arctic mainland. There was something special happening on Wrangel Island...
In fact, this was no fluke: the Wrangel Island mammoths outlived the mainland mammoths by 7,000 years. What's even crazier is that the island woollys died off just 4,000 years ago.
Let's put that in perspective. The last of the woolly mammoths went extinct after the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza, which contradicts what scientists had once thought. But how?
Well, research done by Laura Arppe, of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, and her colleagues digs deeper into the mysterious survival and extinction of the island mammoths. They were determined to find out what “catastrophic” event destroyed this fascinating species.
Using mammoth teeth and bones found on the island, they detected the nature of the group's diet, nutrition, and metabolism. They then analyzed their carbon and nitrogen isotopes, which help interpret "the nutrition and metabolic functioning" of the woollys prior to their extinction.
A 2017 study showed that a “genomic meltdown” induced the demise of the woolly mammoths, as the species experienced mutations that caused severe problems: they couldn't synthesize proteins, which caused a loss of smell, for instance. Laura found something different.
While the 2017 study, which was published in PLOS, offered a complex, seemingly plausible scenario, Laura's findings exhibit that something much simpler led to the extinction of these graceful beasts.
Laura's research began with examining the dietary well-being of the Wrangel Island mammoths in order to gauge a potential lack in resources. Based on this, Laura found no "alarming long-term changes” in habitat or climate. Hmm.
“No one had looked at what was going on with the dietary ecology of the Wrangelian mammoths, and with all these other observations related to diet, it was high time to do so,” Laura said.
“Judged from the numbers of radiocarbon-dated mammoth bone finds on Wrangel Island, this last island population appears to have vanished rather abruptly,” she continued. This had Laura perplexed, so she and her team were on the woolly case.
And since major changes in climate and range reduction happened way before the mammoths went extinct, approximately 4,000 to 6,000 years prior, it likely had nothing to do with their fateful collapse.
So, again: what exactly happened to these island guys 4,000 years ago? Well, though it wasn't related to climate change, the evils of Mother Nature still could've caused mass starvation via "icing events."
When rain on snow created a hard, icy ground, it became impenetrable to the poor, hungry woolly mammoths, who needed to eat their greens and other nutritious plants, such as poppies, buttercups, and anemones.
Though the dietary well-being of the Wrangel Island mammoths was nearly the same as that of the Siberian mammoths, the island mammoths had one superior trait, a trait that could explain their extended survival.
The island mammoths used their fat reserves during freezing winters, and the Siberian mammoths didn't. But unfortunately, the fat reserves didn't save the island mammoths from the icing events. In fact, these icing events affected a plethora of Arctic herbivores.
“20,000 musk oxen were starved to death in 2003 in the Canadian Arctic due to a rain-on-snow event," Laura relayed. While Laura and her team thoroughly believe the icing events acted as the beginning of the end for the mammoths, they also suspect there could've been a lack of healthy fresh water.
Next, Laura and her team aim to study the water quality to either reject or confirm the hypothesis that "the drinking water supply of the animals had high levels of harmful or even toxic elements released from the local bedrock." Right now, it's still a mystery.
While Laura and her team discovered a brilliant anomaly in the world of Arctic research, the true reason behind the woolly mammoths' extinction may forever be an enigma. Meanwhile, one of her contemporaries was focused on uncovering the truth about another mysterious extinction.
Most people would consider a preoccupation with bones concerning, though Robert DePalma's love of the dead and buried is anything but peculiar. An aspiring paleontologist, the 37-year-old managed to turn his lifelong passion into a curator position for the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History.
But DePalma is perhaps best known for the widely publicized discovery he made near Bowman, North Dakota, in 2012. After receiving a tip from a private fossil collector, DePalma and his team began excavating a site along the well-known Hell Creek Formation.
Initially, DePalma felt the site, dubbed "Tanis," had little promise, something the collector had made him privy to prior to the excavation. However, after returning to Tanis in 2013, the paleontologist discovered there was more to this unassuming patch of rock than met the eye.
Just a few meters below the surface, DePalma discovered a host of rare and unusual fossils, including those of species he claimed to have never seen before. It was an incredible find, though one set of bones in particular caught DePalma's eye — and left him positively stumped.
Beneath the skeleton of a freshwater paddlefish, DePalma discovered the tooth of a mosasaur, an enormous reptilian predator that made its home in the oceans of the Early Cretaceous period. This puzzled DePalma and his team, for there was no way this creature could've existed in the fresh waters of prehistoric North Dakota.
The layout of the find was also unusual, the fossils deposited haphazardly and some skeletons even buried vertically in the dirt. Combined with the fact that tektites — small bits of natural glass created from meteor impacts — were also present, everyone was left scratching their head.
Then, a lightbulb went off: could the tektite fragments found in the Tanis deposit have been scattered here by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs? While some researchers would be quick to accept such a theory, the plausibility of this scenario isn't exactly cut and dry.
The widely held belief that an asteroid impact caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event is primarily based on the presence of the KT layer. This 66-million-year-old band of earth stretches over nearly the entire globe and contains a high level of iridium, an element primarily found in asteroids.
This theory is also supported by the Chicxulub crater, a 112-mile impression in the Yucatan Peninsula that contains the same mineral make-up as the KT layer. Therefore, most scientists assume that the asteroid that created this crater scattered the iridium debris that ultimately wiped out the dinosaurs.
If this were the case, then, one would expect to find plenty of fossils in the KT layer: after all, it was during this time that nearly all life on Earth went extinct. However, this actually isn't true at all — hardly any fossils have ever been found in this layer of rock.
In fact, most fossils are found about ten feet below the KT layer, which, geologically speaking, would amount to thousands of years between the death of these creatures and the fateful asteroid impact. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that an extraterrestrial object reduced every last dinosaur to rubble.
Proponents of this alternate theory do still believe that an asteroid impact finished off the last of these prehistoric creatures, though they propose that factors like large-scale volcanic activity and climate change had already wiped out most of the dinosaurs by this point.
However, according to DePalma, the Tanis find was the key to finally putting this debate to bed. Not only were the fossils he discovered located within the KT layer, but their haphazard placement suggested they were deposited here just moments after the asteroid struck.
With this information in mind, DePalma posited that the mile-high tsunamis created by the impact must've traveled up river valleys and into freshwater bodies, which is how the mosasaur tooth came to be here. This was big news.
Eager to share his discovery with the world, DePalma sat down with The New Yorker to share the exclusive details of his historic find. However, as soon as the story broke in April 2019, the paleontology community grew outraged.
Many of DePalma's colleagues were upset that the paleontologist had chosen to share his story with The New Yorker instead of a reputable scientific journal. DePalma later published his discovery in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, though many felt this account was significantly less detailed than his New Yorker piece.
Even prior to this, however, DePalma was considered by some to be a controversial figure in the world of paleontology. In 2015, he introduced a new species of dinosaur he'd recovered from the Hell Creek Formation dubbed Dakotaraptor, though after presenting the completed skeleton, it was discovered one of the bones belonged to a turtle.
DePalma also stirred up controversy with his business practices, as he retains all control of his specimens even after they've been placed in museums and university collections. He also reportedly funds his field work by creating replicas of his finds and selling them to private collectors.
But the strangest discrepancy of all may be DePalma's record of the discovery itself. While the paleontologist and his team have made claims about the large number of dinosaur fossils uncovered near the surface of the Tanis deposit, his article in PNAS only mentions one example in a supplementary document.
As of now, additional papers on Tanis are being prepared that will hopefully clear up the confusion surrounding DePalma's find. Until then, one can only wonder if DePalma's discovery will truly change history or simply wind up as the fabrication of another would-be hero in search of fame and glory.
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