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Mammoth teeth found in Cedar Valley
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · June 01, 2011


Ever make “a find” — like discovering a rare coin, an arrowhead, or even precious stones? It could happen while hiking through a forest, or digging in a field.


Jerry Stafford was walking along a small tributary creek south of Cedar Valley on his family farm when he found an unusual-looking rock.

The amateur archeologist cleared away the dirt and grit and got a better look, discovering he had just stumbled upon a tooth. A big tooth. A mammoth tooth.

“If you didn’t know what it was, you would walk right by it,” he said.

Stafford has found mammoth teeth before, and his most recent find was in late March. He’s found four mammoth teeth since August. The teeth measure 5 to 10 inches long and weight up to a pound or more.

“They were exposed in the sand, about 300 yards apart in the same area,” he said. “And they smell really bad when exposed to air.”

Tiffany Adrain, collections manager for the University of Iowa geoscience paleontology repository, reviewed photographs of Stafford’s finds sent to her by the West Branch Times. She confirmed that all of them were mammoth teeth.

Apparently mammoth teeth are rather common — well, common for fossils — in Iowa. And of all the parts of a mammoth that can survive 10 to 12 thousand years, the teeth are most likely, she said.

“They are often found on sandbogs,” she said. “They are usually washed out of dated sediments.”

Stafford said that in the 1960s, UI archeologists visited his farm after the family found some arrowheads. The Staffords learned then that finding arrowheads and mammoth bones near each other is an amazing find, and even moreso if the bones show signs of human interaction, like a cut from a weapon.

Stafford said these mammoth teeth were near where those arrowheads were found, but it is difficult to tell if there was any physical proof of interaction with humans.

Stafford said mammoths could only produce offspring once every three years and that men typically hunted baby mammoth because they were easier to kill than adults.

“So man may have helped exterminate them by killing the babies,” he said.

The tooth he found is March is small, suggesting it was from a baby mammoth.

“I’m looking for arrowheads and Indian artifacts,” Stafford said.

Mammoths also grow new teeth every 10 years, which is another reason why they are so plentiful, Stafford said.

Adrian said there are no known discoveries in Iowa of mammoth bones modified by early humans, and it is unlikely to find them on teeth. “They would go for the bones with the meat,” she said.

Stafford has varnished his mammoth teeth to slow decomposition and to cover up the smell. Adrian said scientists can learn about a mammoth diet from studying the makeup of its teeth.

Mammoth teeth have a “flat, washboard pattern,” she said, as opposed to the similar mastadon, which has “high cusp, very pointy teeth.”

The mammoth teeth also have a series of ridges and gaps where they attach at the gumline — that was what caught Stafford’s trained eye. This design makes that side of the tooth more fragile, and Adrian said that, quite often, “they fall to pieces like a pack of cards.” Stafford has one large mammoth tooth with an intact root end.

Stafford said he once sold a mammoth tooth for $400 to an Iowa City business.

Adrian said there is “always a market for fossils,” but her office does not assign values to fossils.

“We’re not part of the market,” she said. “But there are certainly lots of fossil dealers and big shows like the MidAmerica Paleontology Society, which promotes responsible collecting.”