Paleolithic: A Very Fine & Scarce Pleistocene Woolly Mammoth Polished Tooth Section
SOLD
Origin: North Sea Deposits
Period: Paleolithic
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.30,000 BC
Length: 8.5 inches
Depth: 1.75 inches (at maximum)
Width: 2.75 inches (at maximum)
Weight: 355 grams
Presenting a superb quality polished section slice of a tooth from the Pleistocene era, once belonging to the extinct Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus Primigenius); the large cross sectional slice showing the original biting surface to the upper face.
Condition is good with only two small fissures throughout, the section is magnificently tactile with a smooth finish and the colour and patination very apparent making this an excellent example.
Mammoths were animals of the Ice Age; they co-existed with, and were hunted, by early man. The North Sea basin is a drowned landscape, flooded after the end of the last Ice Age. Fishing trawlers occasionally bring up bones and relics from when the area was inhabited as dry land and this treasure is a result of that. Their teeth were adapted to their diet of coarse tundra grasses, with more plates and a higher crown than their southern relatives.
Fine and attractive, this is a museum standard artifact and as such is one that is rarely offered for sale.