Dec. 9, 2005
Contact: Rita Mitchell, University Relations
Alum’s chance ‘find’ enhances archaeological study at UT Martin
MARTIN, Tenn. - A chance encounter between James Clapper and an Alaskan riverbank netted a fossil find embedded in the bank for more than 10,000 years. The discovery of wooly mammoth tusks by the UT Martin alum and his father is now benefitting students in a UT Martin geoarchaeology class.
Clapper, a May 2005 graduate, his father, Jon, and another companion were casting for salmon and trout while floating their way down the Aniak River in Western Alaska when they spotted what appeared to be tusks protruding from a cliff following a recent thaw. The town of Aniak and the river are about 500 miles west of Anchorage. The only access to the area is by air or water.
“We had heard from a few different sources that wooly mammoth ivory had been found here and there in the past and knew to keep an eye out for it,” said James.
The father and son from Nashville and Ty Roderick, who joined them from Oklahoma, used crude, makeshift tools to free the tusks after several hours of excavating. The tusks have been in a lab this semester being cleaned, preserved and studied by students in the geoarchaeology class taught by Helmut Wenz and Dr. Michael Gibson. Wenz is a UT Martin professor of geography with expertise in archaeology. Gibson is a UT Martin professor of geology.
“The idea of touching and seeing something that no living creature had for thousands of years was a pretty amazing feeling for us all,” said James. “. . . We were elated when we were finally able to realize their full size and beauty. The outside of the ivory had oxidized into a cobalt blue.”
And, while James and his companions were amazed at their find, Gibson, whose expertise is in the fossils of animals and plants, said such finds are more common than the public might think.
“Many people think the best fossil finds are made by professional paleontologists,” said Gibson. “While paleontologists are busy conducting research, writing and teaching, the average person is the one actually in the field . . in many cases, and thus comes across finds.” He added, “Such encounters are where the majority of scientific discoveries come from.
“One of the things I tell my students as part of their courses is how to recognize when something they come across may be significant enough to ask a professional. After a few years of educating students on what fossils are, how they preserve, where they preserve and their importance, they become an extension of my eyes and ears. While they may not have the training to deal with the find, they do know to contact someone.”
And that is exactly what James did. “I brought them to professor Wenz for several reasons,” James said. “I knew that he and his department would take good care of them and tell me volumes of information about the tusks. James said he also saw it as a way to “give back” to the university. “I believe finds of this nature should not be kept in a private collection somewhere, but should have the chance to be studied and used to enlighten us about the past.”
It was Jon who actually saw the tusks as the trio floated around a sharp bend in the river. They were about three feet above the water with the proximal sides sticking out of the cliff and the distal sides, the points, along with the majority of the tusks embedded in the clay.
“Luckily, we were the first people down the river since the spring melt off and resulting floods that exposed the tusks for us to see,” said James, who added the tusks might have been lost forever if the river flooded and destroyed them. “Although we had no real equipment to excavate the tusks, we used a small tent stake mallet and fashioned some crude tools out of tent stakes wrapped in duct tape for handles to dig and chip away the substrate from around the tusks.”
A log jam that nearly flipped the raft later in the day jeopardized the find, “but we finally got them home after another week on the river and the trip back to Tennessee.”
Once at UT Martin, Wenz and Gibson, who often collaborate, immediately expanded the benefit of the fossil find by placing them in the classroom. “We find ways to include students in these collaborative endeavors because we know that students like the thrill of discovery and this excites learning,” said Gibson. He added there are not many things better “than participating in being the first people to find and handle objects that predate humans or have not been seen by others.”
“So, as we have done in the past, we offered a special-topics course built around the two tusks found by one of our alumni, who thought of our department as the best place to get some answers . . . to me a sure sign that we reached this student and influenced his life in a positive way,” Gibson added.
Students are learning how to clean and preserve the tusks and how to document and evaluate the find. “Science, history and geoarchaeology are usually taught in different departments, but overlap,” Gibson said. “Why not show students the value of a true liberal arts education and approach? Along the way, everyone will have worked on a real find and developed a professional relationship that will last their careers. And we will have preserved and documented a very interesting and important piece of history that would have otherwise been lost.”
As for James, who has a bachelor of science degree in history, he will teach English in Shenzhen, China, through next summer. Career objectives after that are still being considered. “I don’t have a clear idea on what I’m going to do. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at archaeology – wooly mammoth ivory today, El Dorado tomorrow.”
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