MoSplitoe151
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Hope this isn't to long. ST. LOUIS - (KRT) - About 10,000 years ago, a bison died, and over time its skull ended up in the Missouri River in St. Charles County.
Mary Ball recently stumbled across what experts say is that piece of ice age history.
Ball, 35, went looking for arrowheads in and along the Missouri River on Jan. 28 with friend Tim Carter, 47. The two residents of O'Fallon, Mo., had spent the better part of the day walking when, in a sandbar near the Weldon Spring State Wildlife Area, Ball saw a brown-colored skull with thick horns extending from each side.
"I thought it was like a bull's head," Ball said. She and Carter decided to lug the mud-filled cranium back to shore. After cleaning it gently with toothbrushes, they took the 40-pound skull to the Missouri Department of Conservation office where natural history biologist Mike Arduser was shocked. He is used to getting calls from people who say they have seen black panthers or have snakes beneath their couches, he said, but this was different.
"We made arrangements for her to come in, and, holy cow, what a shocker," Arduser said. "She brought this monster skull in, laid it on the table, and in a few minutes, the whole office was coming in." Arduser's guess was that the skull belonged to an extinct, prehistoric form of bison.
Ball's excitement grew when Arduser placed a modern bison skull next to it. "Modern-day bison looks like a baby compared to this thing," she said.
Northwest Missouri State University biology Professor David Easterla examined the skull and confirmed Arduser's guess. He said the skull appeared to be from a predecessor to the modern bison known as Bison antiquus, which was known to have longer and differently shaped horns and a slightly larger body. He said Bison antiquus became extinct probably 9,000 to 11,000 years ago. Easterla is working on a book about the ice age and is involved with the university's collection of bones from that era.
The measurements on the skull - 34 inches from horn tip to horn tip - fit Bison antiquus. R. Lee Lyman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, said 34 inches would be about 86 centimeters, and the average measurement for Bison antiquus was 87 centimeters. By comparison, modern bison would measure about 24 inches - 10 inches less - from horn tip to horn tip, he said.
Easterla said the skull probably belonged to a male bull. A modern bison bull might weigh up to 2,000 pounds, he said, and Bison antiquus would have been a little bigger, maybe up to 2,500 pounds.
Easterla and Lyman said low river levels might lead to more discoveries of ice age fossils. Ball said the sand bar where she found the skull usually is surrounded by water.
The Pleistocene Epoch, commonly referred to as the ice age, started about 2 million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. With its end, so called "megafauna" such as mammoths, mastodons, beavers the size of black bears and giant ground sloths disappeared. Lyman said, depending on which biologist one listens to, that 36 genera of large mammals are believed to have disappeared from North America alone, and other animals moved to different locations.
Even though the bones may not be as old as those of the dinosaurs, which roamed the earth millions of years earlier, Easterla said scientists are interested in ice age remains because they would like to know what caused the changes in these animals and why the ice age ended.
Easterla encouraged anyone who finds fossils to contact a professional as the bones can decay and crumble even if they appear to be mineralized.
Ball took the skull to a local high school, where her daughter Crystal, 17, is a junior. But aside from that, she said she wasn't sure what she would do with the skull.
Carter, who said he carried the skull on his shoulders for most of the 2-mile walk out of the river, across the Katy Trail and across the Femme Osage Slough, said he simply was glad to be in on the discovery.
"It's neat that stuff was around here, and my friend and I were the ones who were able to find it," he said.
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Mary Ball recently stumbled across what experts say is that piece of ice age history.
Ball, 35, went looking for arrowheads in and along the Missouri River on Jan. 28 with friend Tim Carter, 47. The two residents of O'Fallon, Mo., had spent the better part of the day walking when, in a sandbar near the Weldon Spring State Wildlife Area, Ball saw a brown-colored skull with thick horns extending from each side.
"I thought it was like a bull's head," Ball said. She and Carter decided to lug the mud-filled cranium back to shore. After cleaning it gently with toothbrushes, they took the 40-pound skull to the Missouri Department of Conservation office where natural history biologist Mike Arduser was shocked. He is used to getting calls from people who say they have seen black panthers or have snakes beneath their couches, he said, but this was different.
"We made arrangements for her to come in, and, holy cow, what a shocker," Arduser said. "She brought this monster skull in, laid it on the table, and in a few minutes, the whole office was coming in." Arduser's guess was that the skull belonged to an extinct, prehistoric form of bison.
Ball's excitement grew when Arduser placed a modern bison skull next to it. "Modern-day bison looks like a baby compared to this thing," she said.
Northwest Missouri State University biology Professor David Easterla examined the skull and confirmed Arduser's guess. He said the skull appeared to be from a predecessor to the modern bison known as Bison antiquus, which was known to have longer and differently shaped horns and a slightly larger body. He said Bison antiquus became extinct probably 9,000 to 11,000 years ago. Easterla is working on a book about the ice age and is involved with the university's collection of bones from that era.
The measurements on the skull - 34 inches from horn tip to horn tip - fit Bison antiquus. R. Lee Lyman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, said 34 inches would be about 86 centimeters, and the average measurement for Bison antiquus was 87 centimeters. By comparison, modern bison would measure about 24 inches - 10 inches less - from horn tip to horn tip, he said.
Easterla said the skull probably belonged to a male bull. A modern bison bull might weigh up to 2,000 pounds, he said, and Bison antiquus would have been a little bigger, maybe up to 2,500 pounds.
Easterla and Lyman said low river levels might lead to more discoveries of ice age fossils. Ball said the sand bar where she found the skull usually is surrounded by water.
The Pleistocene Epoch, commonly referred to as the ice age, started about 2 million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. With its end, so called "megafauna" such as mammoths, mastodons, beavers the size of black bears and giant ground sloths disappeared. Lyman said, depending on which biologist one listens to, that 36 genera of large mammals are believed to have disappeared from North America alone, and other animals moved to different locations.
Even though the bones may not be as old as those of the dinosaurs, which roamed the earth millions of years earlier, Easterla said scientists are interested in ice age remains because they would like to know what caused the changes in these animals and why the ice age ended.
Easterla encouraged anyone who finds fossils to contact a professional as the bones can decay and crumble even if they appear to be mineralized.
Ball took the skull to a local high school, where her daughter Crystal, 17, is a junior. But aside from that, she said she wasn't sure what she would do with the skull.
Carter, who said he carried the skull on his shoulders for most of the 2-mile walk out of the river, across the Katy Trail and across the Femme Osage Slough, said he simply was glad to be in on the discovery.
"It's neat that stuff was around here, and my friend and I were the ones who were able to find it," he said.
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