A 12-Year-Old Boy Found an Ancient Woolly Mammoth Tooth During a Vacation in Ohio

A family vacation in Ohio’s picturesque Amish country gave one
boy a surprising glimpse of a far-off past, a time when glaciers
covered North America. Last week, Jackson Hepner, age 12,
discovered a massive woolly mammoth tooth, dating to the Ice Age,
in the creek that runs through the Inn at Honey Run in
Millersville, Ohio.

“It’s just a neat find,” innkeeper Jason Nies told local
news outlet WEWS. “It’s not every
day you get to touch and feel and see a mammoth tooth!”

Hepner, a relative of Nies, knew he had spotted something
unusual when he saw the tooth partially buried in the creek,
slightly upstream from the bridge where they had been taking photos
during a family reunion.

“His dad and his uncle are both really into natural history and
understanding nature,” Nies said. “They quickly jumped online and
were Googling it, and that’s when we quickly found out this might
be a mammoth or a mastodon tooth.”

The family reached out to local experts, including Dale Gnidovec
of Ohio State University’s Orton Geological Museum, Nigel Brush of
Ashland University’s geology department, and P. Nick Kardulias of
the archaeology program at the College of Wooster, who all
confirmed that the ancient fossil was a mammoth tooth—an upper
third molar, to be precise.

The woolly mammoth lived in the region between 110,000 and
12,000 years ago and used their massive ridged teeth to grind grass
and seeds.

“We’re thrilled to be the site of a unique and special find that
proves there could be some hidden treasures among the rolling hills
of Ohio’s Amish Country still waiting to be uncovered,” wrote the
inn on its blog.

“I would like to have my tooth back in my hands as soon as
possible,” Hepner wrote in a note accompanying a hand-drawn map
showing the spot he found the tooth. “I want to show my
friends.”

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