An 11-year-old boy found a 1.8-million-year-old ivory tusk on the coast of England
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An 11-year-old boy in England recently found a rare item from the sea: an ancient ivory tooth from a species that lived about 1.8 million years ago.
Charlie Orchard-Lisle found the tooth on East Lane beach in Bawdsey, a coastal town near Ipswich, Suffolk, in May, reports SWNS media.
Found near the beach, the specimen was later identified as a left upper molar measuring 4 inches in diameter.
TRAVELERS CAN HUNT FOR OVER A MILLION FOSSES AND MORE TREASURES IN THESE AREAS.
It once belonged to Anancus arvernensis, an extinct relative of modern elephants, including modern African forest elephants.
Charlie Orchard-Lisle revealed a relative’s living elephant tooth while walking on East Lane beach in Bawdsey with his family. (Newsquest / SWNS)
Pictures of the strange, rock-like object show that the enamel of this tooth has been preserved and mineralized over millions of years.
According to Charlie’s mother, Eleanor Orchard-Lisle, the moment of his discovery was very surprising.
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“Actually, we were walking, and 10 minutes ago, my son Charlie was saying how much he loves elephants,” Eleanor said, according to SWNS.
“It had a different feel to it.”
“We were walking and we saw this object near the flowing waves. So it must have been very different, because it caught both of our eyes. So we picked it up, and my husband came.”
The mother said the family quickly realized that this was “something different.”
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“It had a different feel to it,” she said.
The fossil tooth, about 4 inches in diameter, was found near the shore during a family beach trip. “It’s absolutely amazing,” said Eleanor Orchard-Lisle. (Newsquest / SWNS)
The family isn’t sure where the tooth came from, but Eleanor Orchard-Lisle suggested it was buried within the Red Crag cliff, a rich geological formation found in parts of England’s east coast.
It is possible that the tooth is then removed by erosion before appearing on the beach.
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“It’s really amazing, and I can’t believe you can find something so old that was around 1.8 million years ago and just wash up on the beach,” said Eleanor Orchard-Lisle, according to a SWNS report.
A Suffolk schoolboy joins a growing list of children who have made amazing discoveries in the past.
Experts have identified the specimen as an upper left molar from Anancus arvernensis, an extinct relative of modern elephants. (Arterra Team/Marica van der Meer/Universal Images via Getty Images)
In late April, a group of first graders in Norway discovered a rare Viking sword while exploring a field.
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Around the same time, an 8-year-old boy in Israel discovered a 1,700-year-old fragment of a Roman sculpture while visiting the Ramon Crater in the Negev Desert.
