Mystery tooth

[Tao]

I run into a fair number of teeth while walking gravel bars here in Iowa, and mostly I find bison. This one has me stumped though. It is 3.5 cm long by 1.7 cm wide. Found in eastern Iowa. I appreciate any ideas on what it might be.
Thanks!

[painshill]

Hi Todd and welcome to the forum.
It's a pig molar with the roots snapped off. Looks to be modern species. Also from a youngster, I would say... it's relatively small and unworn. Hernando de Soto brought the first 'modern' pigs to mainland America via Tampa Bay, Florida in 1539.
Painshill

[greywolf22]

We have millions of wild pigs in Texas, we hunt them and trap them with what ever means possible. It is now legal to hunt these from a helicopter. We shot three young ones, under 50 lbs on our last hunt, these are very good eating.
Jack

[upper midwest]

So, Roger, you knew it wasn't an older fossil because it looks like a modern species or b/c it doesn't look ancient..or both??
I led Todd here -and- am struggling to learn when a bone actually crosses over into being a fossil.  or is it degrees of being fossilized..most of our pleistocene fossils in IA are bluish...
thanks in advance,
John

[painshill]

John
A fossil is defined as the preserved remains of an animal, plant or other organism. There is a generally accepted (but completely arbitrary) cut-off date of 10,000 years, beyond which we refer to preserved remains as fossilised. For ‘young’ fossils, the preservation may be nothing more than dehydration, mineral penetration or a thin coating of mineral patina. The latter is what tends to happen for Pleistocene teeth… as opposed to complete mineralisation and replacement of the original organic material, which is what normally happens for ancient fossils.
Since your tooth looks to be modern species, it can’t be more than a few hundred years old. To be older, it would need to be something with anatomical/dentition similarities to a pig which is known to have predated de Soto. A peccary, for example,  would be most likely and could also be Pleistocene, but it’s not a peccary molar.
The patination looks consistent with a recent age, but looks can be deceptive. Pleistocene bones are, as you say, frequently dark from mineral staining since they often come out of gravel deposits rich in clay, silt or organic mud. Teeth are less porous than bones and may not pick up staining so readily. It also depends on the find area. Here’s a couple of Pleistocene Cave Bear items in my collection that have no staining at all since they were actually found in a cave (in Poland).


Largely protected from the elements and not deeply buried, they have only picked up a light calcite patina from water dripping through limestone.
Painshill

[upper midwest]

Thanks for the thorough response.  Had never heard the arbitrary cut-off date of 10,000 ybp.  Nice cave bear fossils...
John

[Tao]

Thank you for the information and the positive ID on the tooth.  I am really excited about this forum and all the great information.   Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to share in the future!
Todd

[painshill]

Tao wrote:

Thank you for the information and the positive ID on the tooth.  I am really excited about this forum and all the great information.   Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to share in the future!
Todd

  Todd
I still think it's interesting. Everything we find is a little piece of history in some way or another. Although Columbus took 8 pigs to the Americas (Cuba) in 1493, it was de Soto who brought 13 pigs to the mainland in 1539. The number had risen to more than 700 in captivity when he died three years later.
It became common for a few pigs to be given to the natives to keep the peace and it was said that they became extremely fond of the meat. So fond of it, that some of the worst assaults by natives on de Soto’s expeditionary party were pig-rustling attacks.
Cortés brought more pigs to New Mexico in 1600 and Sir Walter Raleigh brought another consignment to Jamestown in 1607. The many escapees founded America’s feral pig population. Semi-wild pigs ravaged the grain fields of the New York colonists, leading to a legal requirement for every pig taller than 14 inches to have a tethering ring in its nose.
The colonists on Manhattan Island constructed a secure wall on the northern edge of their colony to keep the pigs out and this is what gave rise to the area now named “Wall Street”.
Painshill

[Hoss]

Roger don't forget to mention that neat little game called Pass the Pigs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_the_Pigs