‘Wow! I Found a Dragon’s Tooth’: 6-Year-Old Boy Picks Up Mastodon Molar While Hiking

PENNLive ^ | 9/30 | Samuel Dodge

[nickcarraway]

Like many 6-year-olds, Julian Gagnon likes to pick things up off the ground. Sticks, rocks, you name it.

Earlier this month, he made his most important discovery yet. Important enough to garner the attention of University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology.

Julian found an ancient mastodon tooth during a Sept. 6 hike with his family at Dinosaur Hill Nature Preserve in Rochester Hills. UM museum scientists verified its authenticity, and Julian will donate it to the museum to ensure its preservation.

Julian is probably the first person to touch the tooth in 12,000 years, said Adam Rountrey, the paleontology museum’s research museum collection manager.

“These things are so valuable in the long term for research about how the animals lived,” Rountrey said.

While the discovery is indeed cool, Dinosaur Hill officials said they discourage people from straying from established paths and trying to dig for artifacts on their own.

Julian wanted to find “a dragon’s tooth” on the fateful hike, said his mother Mary Gagnon. While wading through the creek at the park on North Hill Circle, he suddenly yelled out “Wow! I found a dragon’s tooth,” she said.

His father Brian Gagnon was skeptical, she said, and suggested Julian throw it back into the creek. She said she convinced her husband that Julian could have one more item to take home. And, upon further inspection later that night, they both were stunned to discover what Julian found really looked and felt like a tooth.

Once UM provided the verification that it was the upper right molar of a juvenile mastodon, the Gagnon family was “beside themselves,” she said. As far as a reward, Julian had high hopes.

“Does this mean I get to be the president?” his mother said of his initial reaction. Also, he suggested Dinosaur Hill Nature Preserve be renamed Mastodon Hill.

“He was also very, very specifically concerned that he wanted to make sure he was credited as the discoverer of the mastodon tooth,” she said, with a chuckle. “That was very important to him that I relate that to the paleontologists.”

No argument from him, Rountrey said. The discovery prompted him and his fellow researchers to search the creek for more mastodon material, but they came up empty.

The fact that a random person found a mastodon tooth, in fact, is the way many paleontologists find their specimens, he said.

“Mammoth and mastodon fossils are relatively rare in Michigan, but compared to other places in the United States, there actually have been more occurrences,” Rountrey said.

Rountrey pointed to the 2015 discovery of woolly mammoth bones by a farmer in Chelsea as an example.

Rountrey and his fellow paleontologists verified the authenticity of the tooth Julian found through several factors, including its size, Rountrey said.

“It’s crown is about the size of my fist, so maybe between baseball and softball size,” he said. “There aren’t really too many options for what animal that could come from in Michigan. We had mammoths and mastodons here at the same time, but mammoth teeth are very distinctive and different” from what Julian found.

He also noted “tall bumps” on the crowns that form “little sort of mountains on the tooth” that are distinctively from a mastodon.

As a reward for his discovery, Julian will meet with the paleontologists sometime in October for a behind-the-scenes tour at the university’s Ann Arbor Research Museums Center.

The fact that his discovery is part of the exhibit is exciting for Julian, “as you can imagine,” Mary Gagnon said.

“This has only fueled his passion for archaeology and paleontology,” she said. “As far as he’s concerned, this is his first discovery of his career, and now it’s hard to dissuade him from picking anything up that he sees in the natural world.”

[nickcarraway]

Were Homo Sapiens in the new world when mastodons were still roaming the earth?

[Flick Lives]

The tooth is set. 12,000 old, which is nothing geologically. I looked it up and minimal time required for fossilization is 10,000 years, so it just makes it.

Of course semi-complete non fossilized mammoths (similar to mastodons) have been found frozen solid and well preserved in Siberia.

[mylife]

dunno, I was born in 59

[Flick Lives]

Were Homo Sapiens in the new world when mastodons were still roaming the earth?

—

For sure. Recent article I saw pushed back the existence of humans in North America to at least 21,000 years ago.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1040381802/ancient-footprints-new-mexico-white-sands-humans

[pepsi_junkie]

“Mammoth and mastodon fossils are relatively rare in Michigan...

Relatively rare, so uncommon relative to other places. Cool. Let's hear some more.

...but compared to other places in the United States, there actually have been more occurrences,” Rountrey said.

So more common relative to other places. Relatively common then?

So confused...

[nickcarraway]

Sense from journalists is relatively rare?

[nickcarraway]

I saw that too, but not sure if it widely accepted yet.

[wgmalabama]

We can swap them out now.

[null and void]

Julian is probably the first person, ever, to touch the tooth -- unless the mastodon had a dental plan. :^)

Or the mastodon had a taste for human flesh.

Although I suppose technically that would be the tooth touching the human...

};^P>

[null and void]

Gotta hand it to you on that one...

[MercyFlush]

There’s evidence that the 1st humans in the North America date back as far as 30,000 years.

[mcshot]

Well considering that many prolly don’t know what a mastodon was it may be beneficial to throw them a hint.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Who touched it 12,000 yrs ago?
....................................
I too noticed the comment you’ve referred to, and I got good chuckle out of it!

[gnarledmaw]

Yes, probably never touched but then again...

That area looks like theyre dealing with a lot of water. If its boggy there now it was probably boggy there then also. In southern WI there have been a number of finds in boggy areas along/in present day creeks. Supposedly the inhabitants at the time drove them into the swamp to make them easier to kill. There well might be a number of entire but dismantled skeletons just up river where the killing floor had been.

[mylife]

in Wi you hunt deer in there, yup been there, that’s where they are

[Paal Gulli]

You’ve got to be pretty damn stupid to publish a photo of anything as abnormally large as the tooth of a pachyderm and not put something else in the frame for reference of scale.

[SunkenCiv]

They’re extinct because they didn’t floss.

[SunkenCiv]

---

Did dinosaur fossils inspire the mythical griffin? Did mammoth bones shape the story of the Gigantomachy? Were the cyclopes modeled on the skulls of dwarf elephants? This video investigates some of the fascinating intersections between fossils and the Greek myths.

This video is part of a collaboration with @NORTH 02 Check out their video "Scimitar Cats, Cave Bears, and Behemoths" for more on the fossils that so fascinated the ancient Greeks and Romans.

If you enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my book “Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.”...

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction
1:37 Dinosaurs and Griffins
3:52 Mammoths and Giants
6:13 Dwarf Elephants and Cyclopes
8:16 Conclusion

Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and the Greek Myths | August 20, 2021 | toldinstone

[mware]

Great find, but would rather have a find at that diamond park out in the west.