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Miocene Atlantic Blue Marlin Skull Features  Miocene Marlin Skull  Modified Mako Teeth  Polynesian Shark Tooth Sledgehammer  Bayside History Museum

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Miocene Atlantic Blue Marlin Skull Features  Miocene Marlin Skull  Modified Mako Teeth  Polynesian Shark Tooth Sledgehammer  Bayside History Museum The ECPHORA The Newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club Volume 28 Number 4 December 2013 Miocene Atlantic Blue Marlin Skull Features Miocene Marlin Skull Modified Mako Teeth Polynesian Shark Tooth Sledgehammer Bayside History Museum Inside Ecphora – Barnacle Home Canary Island Megs Fossil Club at PRAD Stratford Hall Whale Prep Pathological Meg Tooth 3-D Scanning Prints on the Beach Bugs at the Beach Reptiles at County Fair Potomac Coprolites Paleo Beer? Raku Shark Teeth Fish Skeleton as Earrings This lovely partial skull was found by Bill Palmer along Calvert Cliffs. It Dino Gasoline consists of most of the neurocranium of a Miocene Atlantic blue marlin; Field Trips and more… very similar to the living Atlantic blue marlin (Makaira nigricans, shown below, from: http://fishonbluemarlin.com/blue-marlin-makaira-nigricans/). Blue marlin are large and very fast-swimming open-ocean predators that use their bill (rostrum) to knife their way through schools of fish, to which they return to consume the stunned or dead individuals. Their scientific name “Makaira” means “short sword” or “dagger”. Skulls like this are exceedingly rare and I look forward to comparing it to the skulls of extant marlin. Hands by M. Baughman. Photo by S. Godfrey. ☼ See page 2… Image from: http://chnm.gmu.edu/tah- loudoun/blog/lessons/american-indians-and- their-environment/ CALVERT MARINE MUSEUM www.calvertmarinemuseum.com 2 The Ecphora December 2013 Modified Fossil Mako Teeth It is now known that Amerindians collected, traded, and deliberately modified fossil shark teeth to be used as projectile points, knives, and/or scraping tools (Murphy, 1975; Kozuch, 1993; Doran, 2002; Penders, 2002; Purdy, R.W. 2006 Lowery et.al, 2011). They also intentionally drilled holes through the root of fossil shark teeth for possible use as personal adornment or as religious ornamentation. More recently, teeth from extant sharks have also been used by Pacific native peoples to armor shark- tooth weapons (Campbell, 2006; Platt, 2006; and a subsequent article herein). Figure 2. An enlarged view of Figure 1B. Notice that the tooth is notched between the cutting edge of the blade and the shoulder of the root of the tooth (arrows). The earliest evidence that pre-European Native Americans gathered and used fossil shark teeth originates from a series of burials at the Windover site in Florida (Penders 2002). These burials are between 5,500 and 12,873 years old (Doran, 2002), and the shark teeth found within the graves show that many were hafted and used as cutting, scraping, incising, and drilling implements (Lowery et.al, 2011). The four large fossil mako (C. hastalis) teeth figured here (Figs. 1, 2, & 4) are notched in the same Figure 1. Four large fossil Cosmopolitodus (Isurus) way as are four mako (C. hastalis) teeth that were hastalis teeth shown in labial view from the found in a cache at the Wheatley Point site collection of Steve Grossman. These mako teeth (18DO371) in Dorchester County, Maryland (Fig. 3) were collected individually (i.e., they were not (Lowery et. al, 2011; figs 11 & 12). The Wheatley associated) from the bed of the Suwannee River and Point fossil mako teeth were found immediately all show signs suggesting that they were deliberately below the shell midden at site 18DO371. In at least notched by Amerindians for use as projectile points. two of the Suwannee River teeth (Figs. 2 & 4), the notching is so symmetrical and site specific as to suggest that they were deliberately notched for use as projectile points. Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/exhibits/paleontology-newsletter.php 3 The Ecphora December 2013 Figure 3. A fossil mako (Cosmopolitodus (Isurus) hastalis) tooth cache found at 18DO371 (image from Lowery et al., 2011). Notice that these teeth are Figure 4. An enlarged view of Figure 1C. Notice that notched in the same way as the Suwannee River the tooth is notched between the cutting edge of the makos shown in Figures 1, 2, & 4. blade and the shoulder of the root of the tooth. The notch would have held sinew that was Doran, G. 2002. The Windover Radiocarbon Chronology. In used to secure the hafted tooth to its wooden shaft. Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Keep in mind that not every notch at the Archaic Florida Cemetery, edited by Glen H. Doran. University Press of Florida, Gainesville junction of a fossil shark tooth’s cutting edge and Lowery D., S.J. Godfrey, and R. Eshelman. 2011. Integrated root was necessarily made by an Amerindian. Some Geology, Paleontology, and Archaeology: Native of these teeth may have been broken naturally; it American Use of Fossil Shark Teeth in the Chesapeake would be worth studying the occurrence of notched Bay Region. Archaeology of Eastern North America fossil shark teeth further. 39:93-108 Kozuch, L. 1993. Sharks and Shark Products in Prehistoric South Florida. Institute of Archaeology and Acknowledgments Paleoenvironmental Studies, Monograph No. 2. University of Florida, Gainesville. Many thanks to Steve Grossman, for the loan of Murphy, J.L. 1975. Sharks Tooth Caches in Wayne County, these handsome mako teeth. Ohio. Ohio Archaeologist 25(4):26-27. Penders, T. 2002. Bone, Antler, Dentary, and Lithic Artifacts. In Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early References Archaic Florida Cemetery, edited by Glen H. Doran. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Campbell, S. 2006. "Shark-Tooth Weapons". Warrior Arts and Platt, A. 2006. Shark Teeth Used as Weapons by Pacific Native Weapons of Ancient Hawaii. Berkeley, California: Blue Peoples - the Tebutje, with a Brief Review of Fossil Shark Snake Books, Berkeley, CA. Teeth and Fossil Silicates by Certain Native Americans. The Ecphora 21(4):7-11. Purdy, R.W. 2006. Analysis of Sharks Teeth: Report on the Whitehurst Archaeological Project Sharks Teeth, Appendix N. In The Archaeology of an Urban Landscape, The Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/exhibits/paleontology-newsletter.php 4 The Ecphora December 2013 Whitehurst Freeway Archaeological Project, by D. Knepper, J. Rutherford, D. Hayes, C. Shields, and C. Bowen. Prepared for the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C. Submitted by S. Godfrey. ☼ Dolphins like Surfing Too http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/breachi ng-dolphins-show-australian-surfer-who-really- masters-the-waves/ Submitted by John Nance. ☼ Polynesian Shark-Tooth Sledgehammer The first Hawaiians came to Hawaii over 1500 years ago from Polynesia in the Southwest Pacific Ocean. Weapons often took the form of a club and Polynesian clubs were carved out of Koa wood and some were inlaid with shell or bone for decoration. In some cases, like the Hawaiian Lei o Mano or the shark-tooth club, bone, rock, shell or shark’s teeth were used in place of metal for the purpose of tearing or piercing flesh. Each club had a specific use and targeted a different part of the body. Koa wood is a unique hardwood that grows primarily over the ancient lava flows on the Big Island of Hawaii. The grain of Koa wood is exquisite and comes in many colors...red, blonde, dark and light brown. Curly Koa is a rare exotic wood that is used in making guitars. Only the fallen or non-viable trees are used to make the weapons and frames. While the weapons and paddles can be purchased A Polynesian Lei O Mano (Lei of shark teeth) club without the shadow box frame, the one shown here (a.k.a. Sledgehammer) by TikiMaster. was framed by the manufacturer (TikiMaster) as a work of art in their factory on Oahu. The weapon is Text and photo submitted by Hal Wiggins. ☼ made of Koa wood and the teeth are from a tiger shark. The largest tooth is a fossilized Otodus shark tooth. Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/exhibits/paleontology-newsletter.php 5 The Ecphora December 2013 Supersize Miocene New Megamouth Tiger Shark Tooth Shark Species Named http://news.yahoo.com/extinct-megamouth-shark- species-finally-identified-153514600.html Submitted by John Nance. ☼ CALVERT MARINE MUSEUM FOSSIL CLUB TRIPS & EVENTS FOR ALL TRIPS CONTACT Bob Ertman at [email protected]. As soon as possible, but NO LATER than Thursday before a trip. His cell phone number is: 410 533-4203 Sunday, December 1, 2013. Our last trip of this season, the John Wolf Memorial Fossil Trip will be Sunday, Dec. 1. We'll meet at a park and ride in Middleton, Delaware, at 9:30 a.m. and caravan to a Victor Perez found the large lower tiger shark tooth cornfield in Odessa to collect petrified wood along Calvert Cliffs. Although it is much larger than (cypress from the Pleistocene, probably 1.5-2 million an average-size tiger shark tooth (like the one above years old, close to the Miocene boundary). Here's a it), Dr. Bretton Kent identified it as having come link to a nice write up about one of our trips there: from a very old individual of Galeocerdo aduncus as http://viewsofthemahantango.blogspot.com/2011/08/ opposed to it being a tooth from Galeocerdo cuvier petrified-wood-from-delaware.html. (the extant tiger shark; its teeth are not known from Calvert Cliffs). About noon we'll move on to the Chesapeake & Unlike mammals, sharks do not have determinate Delaware Canal for a different kind of collecting. growth; rather they continue to increase in size We’ll be digging & sifting in the spoil banks for (albeit at an ever-slowing rate) for as long as they marine fossils from the Cretaceous, about 144 to 65 live (they have indeterminate growth). Therefore, it million years ago. Here's a link to info on some of would be possible for a very long-lived individual to the things that can be found at the canal: have had teeth much larger than the teeth of http://www.dgs.udel.edu/publications/pubs/SpecialP average-size adults.
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