Cryptomundo » Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth

Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth - Perhaps

Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 11th, 2007

This mastodon (Mammut americanum) is the life-sized bronze representation at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the home of the “Mastodons.”

As you will recall, on the 8th, you first read here about the “Mystery Tusk.” Now comes a “confirmed” answer. Or is it? Therein lies the tale behind the splash on the television screen.

The video is running on the local news this morning and WCSH-6 has run a backup item on their website by Peter Weyl. The mystery tusk was discovered by Tim Winchenbach of Cushing. He found it in a scallop net brought up from the Georges Bank. The tusk is allegedly from a mastodon, not a wooly mammoth. Well, at least, the artifact is not being pinned on a circus elephant as was done in the 1950s, with a previous find.

Mystery Tusk

As a side note, I see that Mr. Winchenbach’s name literally may be translated from German as “hauled from a brook.”

What is the source of the rather definitely mastodon verdict? Apparently, with cameras rolling, a staff member of the Maine State Museum looked in some books and said so because the teeth of mastodons have been found out to sea within several hundreds of miles near this find! No internal structural analysis, no radio carbon-dating, so far. Nope. None. But because only mastodons fossils have been found out to sea off the Coast of Maine, shazam, it must be a mastodon.

Mammoth Tusk

As WCSH puts it:

A paleontologist at the Maine State Museum says the tusk came from a mastodon…Dr. Paula Work confirmed that it is, indeed, part of a pre-historic tusk. But she says it actually came from a mastodon, which was slightly smaller than the wooly mammoth….

Doctor Work says mastodons roamed the area that is now covered by North Atlantic waters 13,000 years ago, although the tusk could be much older.

“We can actually start to map out where these finds are and we may very well find out the mastodons were right over here on Georges Bank that must have been a forested area,” said Dr. Work.

Okay, okay, it probably is from a mastodon. But what if it is a new species of something with tusks, a brand new find of a mammoth there, a giant walrus, or a new subspecies of mastodon that should be named after Winchenbach? Perhaps my natural cryptozoological skepticism is coming out with regard to this story, as a cautionary tale, but this latest bit of news shows some intriguing tendencies to go for the easy answer, if you ask me.

Tim and Michelle Winchenbach, at least, is interested in more answers.

“I’d like to have it carbon dated so I know how old it is. Because they don’t really know how long ago it was that was dry land and how far back the dry land was there,” said [Tim] Winchenbach.

Well, at least one other mystery find not heard about before was solved. I saw the images of it on WCSH-6 this morning, and the paleontologist is on target about this one:

Mastodon

The Winchenbachs also brought another artifact, a huge tooth that was found by Tim’s brother Anthony last spring. Doctor Work positively identified it as a mastodon tooth.

Poor Paula Work. She’s probably not been called “Doctor Work” so many times in one news article.

So where are we? One verdict is in, but should we exhibit a little skepticism based on the methods used to come to this conclusion? Or just forget about this story and move on? It’s not a circus elephant, but aren’t such incidents cautionary tales in how “cryptid” evidence is often handled?

Random Posts

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 8:25 am and is filed under Artifacts, Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoology, Extinct, Forensic Science, Media Appearances, New Species, Out of Place. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

Spread the Word!

del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit StumbleUpon Help

Similar Phenomena:

4 Responses to “Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth - Perhaps”

BurningStarFour responds: January 11th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Agreed Loren it seems mainstream Scientists in general are too eager to write something off as a known species. For what reason I don’t know, but it seems the public in general is to willing to accept what must be the obvious and move on. Very tragic as there may have been many new discoveries if someone would have done a bit more digging.
busterggi responds: January 11th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Perhaps it’s from a 13,000 year old circus hybrid of a mammoth and a mastodon.

I’m just jealous because I’ve found about zip in my searches.
RockerEm responds: January 11th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Nice find!
mystery_man responds: January 12th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Well, although it seems that it is certainly a possibility that this is indeed the tusk of a mastadon, I personally feel that at least some sort of further analysis should be done on this. If we find some kind of physical evidence akin to a gorilla in an area where gorillas live, should we just conveniently assume that it is merely from a gorilla and not even entertain other possibilities, such as hominids? Unfortunately, a lot of scientists who do not subscribe much to theories about hominids are going to do exactly that. To them it is cut and dried. I don’t think that this sort of attitude of going with the seemingly obvious answer is always in the best interest of finding out what is going on in the world. The preliminary evidence here points to a mastadon tusk, but I feel it would be very irresponsible to not at least give this thing carbon dating and a structural analysis to explore other possibilities.

Leave your comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.

|Top | Content|

Cryptomundo
for Bigfoot, Loch Ness, and More

Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth - Perhaps

Random Posts

Spread the Word!

Random Posts

4 Responses to “Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth - Perhaps”

Leave your comments

Main Page

Join The Search

Mystery Pages

Login

Advertisement

Syndication

Donate Today

The Beyond

Advertisement

T 84 Viagra

taking viagra after the expiration date

cheap gerneric viagra

generic viagra levitra and cialis pills!

cheap gerneric viagra

cheap gerneric viagra

cheap gerneric viagra

Non Prescription Viagra

Viagra Illegal Phillipines

Side Affects Of Viagra

Buy Viagra Online At

taking viagra woman

Viagra And Cannabis

generic viagra levitra and cialis pills!

Viagra Bon Marche

taking viagra woman

Impotence Viagra

cheap gerneric viagra