Posted on 09/30/2021 1:03:30 PM PDT by 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.”
I was wondering if it was from that movie. Pretty condition for that old. Good Will?
I thought it went blind?
I think there’s a company that makes a bunch of 80’/90’s retro t-shirts. No way a child’s size tee makes it that long, in that condition.
Maybe it was sitting in some old lady’s barn since her son went to Vietnam.
I have actually walked that trail countless times, it’s real. There is a hill shaped like a sleeping brontosaurus there. That’s how it got it’s name.
LOL, maybe.
“Does this mean I get to be the president?” his mother said of his initial reaction.”
Cute kid!
I would hope he will get some college fund money. He’s going places.
Yes. Even at his age, he would do a lot better than Biden.
Let’s make the trade!
That’s what I was thinking ... more like “The ONLY person EVER to have touched it (up to that time)”.
“Dont need a weather man to know the way the wind blows.”
He is the first person to touch it in 12,000 years? What makes anyone think it was touched that long ago? It’s been “untouched” is probably more accurate.
Can a six year old give his consent t to donate an artifact with some value to the mmuseum?
I think not
Are private citizens allowed to own such artifacts such as this legally in Pennsylvania?
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.
Julian is probably the first person, ever, to touch the tooth -- unless the mastodon had a dental plan. :^)
We know you can form full sentences, kid, so we have one other question. How much pudding do you eat?
“Who touched it 12,000 yrs ago?”
One of the Native Americans who so lived in harmony with nature that they hunted the mastodon into extinction.
Cute kid. Congratulations to him!
Could be.
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