EPISODE 757 MAMMOTH TUSK FOUND IN DUBLIN GULCH AFTER OVERBURDEN WASHED AWAY 1961
alan skeoch march 2023
I just found this photo among pictures taken in 1961 in Dublin Gulch , Yukon territory. This is the claim being hydraulically washed to bed rock by Jack Acheson and his crew. The tusk of a mammoth is clearly visible even to the point of the indentation in the mud where it has rested for 10,000 years or so.
Jack hired me to do a small seismic survey over his claim just to see how much mud and gravel he would have to wash away to get to the gold lodged in folds in the bedrock. Ugly looking overburden as you can see. Likely sediment from an ancient river that washed the dead mammoth in pieces to where Jack found the tusk.
I am not sure if it is legal to keep these tusks. See what you can find about that question.
Jack had a number of these tusks leaning against his Yukon cabin. The bones and tusks and teeth when found were all in a jumble…no intact skeleton. Likely the mammoth died some distant away and had been carried to this resting place in the slurry of mud.
I never asked Jack what he did with these pieces but think he invited a museum scientist to come to his claim every year. Ownership of the find? I don’t know what the law said.
But I do know that Jack gave me this Mammoth tooth which was a great teaching prop until it was stolen by a student or teacher or visitor to Room 218 at Parkdale C. I. and now rests in some recreation room in Toronto. I only owned the tooth for one season.
So what is the difference between mammoth nd mastodon teeth. The animal looked the same. Right? Big difference. Mastodon teeth much like our teeth…chunky. Mammoth teeth were flaky looking…like a loaf of sliced bread. So the difference is obvious. Mammoths lived in a more hostile environment than mastodons. Like the Yukon 10,000 or 12,000 years ago.
When a mammoth wore down his or her two sets of teeth, it starved to death. I think we would starve to death as well with no teeth. Using this mammoth tooth as an implant…dental implant…seems unlikely but I will ask Dr. Lynas, my dentist. If possible I would need a bigger head.
alan skeoch March 5, 2023