150-Million Year Old Baby Bird Fossil/ W Hide Scraper
(no login) Posted May 11, 2005 10:38 PM
150-Million Year Old Baby Bird Fossil/ Hide Scraper!
By, Steven Montes
I was using my metal detector in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona. As luck would have it, I never find anything that I am looking for. As I was walking back to my truck with my metal detector resting on my shoulder. I caught sight of an unusual looking rock laying on the ground. I picked the rock and noticed a fossilized baby bird just off-center of the stone. I turned the stone over to reveal more of the bird’s body.
After showing the bird of to some of my friends, I decided to take the stone to the University of Arizona. I wanted to learn more about what I had found.
When I arrived, I was told to take my stone to the Paleontology Department across the lawn in front of where I was. When I got there I saw a professor in his office. I asked him if I could talk to a Paleontologist. He asked why, so I handed him the stone and preceded to tell him how I had found the stone. His eyes got big with excitement as he examined the stone while we walking down the hallway to another office soon there were several professor and people looking at the stone in awe over my good fortune. As they talked, I listened.
The rock I found was secondary sedimentary solidified black limestone. Which is not indigenous to this area. I was told the rock could have come from Canada, Montana, Kansas, China, or even from South America.
I was told that the baby bird fossil had evolved from reptiles 150-million years ago. Another professor pointed out to me other inclusions in the stone like plant matter, twigs, and other foreign objects not identifiable to him. One professor stated that there was proof that this rock was found on the top of the ground like I said due to the impact marks etched into the rock as the rain water hit the front of the stone for thousands of years while it lay on top of the ground. The marks were small circular pockets about the size of a pencil eraser grouped together. It was also mentioned that there was once other bones near the chest of the bird that had fallen out over time but the imprint of the bones are still visible. They could not identify the species of the bird, because all baby birds look alike at birth.
I was asked by one of the professors if I wouldn’t mind waiting a little while longer for one more professor who was still in class to come see the stone. He stated that this professor was part of their group and they wanted to miss seeing the stone.
Later as he approached, I handed him the stone. As he looked at it for a moment and stated that this stone was an artifact that had been carved by primitive man into a tool used to scrape the flesh away from the hide after the game had been killed for food. It turned out that his background is in Archeology. A silence fell on the people gathered as we all listened to the information being given about this rare specimen.
The archeologist then asked one of the professors if he could borrow his microscope, to look at the stone more in depth. The group moved down the hall to a small office where we entered. As I stood by his side, he examined the stone and stated that there were glassy areas on the sharp edge around the stone that were not visible to the naked eye. He said that the tendons and ligaments had polished parts of the stone during of its use. He also stated that the hide scraper was in mint condition and had hardly been used. He went on to say that most hide scrappers that we see today in museums are small ovals that are badly worn due to their use, and then discarded when they become too small. He also said that he had never seen a slightly used hide scraper before.
He made mention that he wished he knew what group of people had carved the hide scraper. He thought that the person who carved the stone might possibly be the first person to be recorded or documented for being the first person to be a collector of fossils. He also said that these primitive people were farmers, artists, traders much like the people of today.
He also stated that the position of the bird and the way it was hand carved into a tool portrayed the bird in such a manner that this item would be considered true specimen of fossil art.
One of the questions that I asked was how much was this unique item I had found worth? The answer was that since no one in the history of collecting had ever found anything like this to date in the world, he considered this specimen priceless.
My next question was how do I sell this artifact/ fossil. A young lady, still full of excitement stated that if she were I, I should take a picture of the hide scraper and put it on the internet, and said that I should put a price of 20 million dollars on it. Being that there is only one of these unique hide scrapers in the world. The chances of finding anything like it again are probably one in a trillion.
She also said try to visualize this, there might be people in the world with the biggest diamond in the world, but other people have diamonds, or someone may have the biggest house in the world, but other people have houses. She said try to think of something that no one else has, and that is what you’ve got.
There are printable versions of this story at: Search Engine, www.Google.com just enter 150-Million Year Old Baby Bird Fossil/ Hide Scraper in the search engine box provided. My story is listed on the first page.
If you want any pictures or more information about this topic, please call me at area code: 520-749-1105 or e-mail smontes@scientist.com