Quaternary Period
(2,58 million yrs. BC to nowadays)
What happened?
The developments of the climate change carry the narrative of the Quaternary Period. It's the most recent Period of Earth's history. Glaciers advanced from the Poles and then retreated, carving and molding the land with each pulse. Sea levels fall and rise with each period of dreezing and thawing. The Quaternary is also characterized by the extinction of many plant and animal species. Some mammals got massive, grew furry coats and disappeared. Humans evoled to their modern form. They took over the world and marked every Earth system, including the climate.
It's the most recent Period of the Cenozoic Era. it follows the Neogene Period. The Quaternary Period is divided into two Epochs: the Pleistocene and Holocene Epoch. This Period was introduced first as the 'Fourth Division'. Later the term Quarternary (= Quarter) was used and defined.
Right Jawbone with Embedded Molars. Found: Madagascar (JN0629)
Magalasy Hippopotamus
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 10.000 BC
The Malagasy hippo lived on the island of Madagascar. Now (2022) it is believed to be extinct. The fossil record suggests that at least one species of hippo lived until about 1000 AD. The animals were very similar to the extant hippopotamus and pygmy hippopotamus. Although the hippo has not been well studied, there is growing confirmation that there are three species of Malagasy hippopotamus.
Hippos live half in the water. It is possible that they survived a journey of 400 km across the canal. However, it is also possible that the water was less deep then, with small islands along the way. Three distinct and successful migrations may have brought the three species to Madagascar. Hippopotamus lemerlei, Hippopotamus madagascariensis and Hippopotamus laloumena are the three species included in this class. The fossil record of the Malagasy hippo is extensive. Found bones show signs of slaughter. That indicates that the hippos survived until humans arrived in Madagascar. Their extinction may also be due to humans.
Despite the many fossils found, the hippos of Madagascar are not much studied. The hippos were among the dominant grazers in Madagascar. The animal loosely resembled its African cousin. The African hippo is larger in size. The Malagasy hippopotamus was about 1,5 m – 2 m in length, 0,7 m high and weighs about 250 kg. The smaller size of the Malagasy pygmy hippopotamus is the result of insular dwarfism. The species evolved into the smaller environment, such as Madagascar, with a limited food supply. Even if they were smaller, they could have walked much faster and lived less in the water. Many fossils are found in the forested highlands.
Rock - Obsidian
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 2000 AD
Obsidian is a naturally volcanic glass, formed when lava extruded from a volcano rapidly cools with minemal crystal growth. It is in fact an igneous rock.
The rock is hard, brittle, and amorphous. It fractures with sharp edges. Obsidian was therefore used in the past to manufacture cutting and piercing tools. It was experimental used as surgical scalpel blades.
The volcanic glass is mineral-like, but not a true mineral. It is not crystalline. Usualy dark in color, similar to basalt, though varies can depend on the impurities present. Iron and other transition elements may give the obsidian a dark brown to black color.
Because obsidian is metastable at the Earth's surface, over time the glass becomes fine-grained mineral crystals. Obsidian older than Miocene in age is rare.
Magnetic Volcanic Sand
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 2020 AD
Most sand is made by a natural process called weathering. It can take hundreds to millions of years. The process basically involves the environmental elements minerals, rocks and chemicals that break down together over a period. The composition of the beach can be very different from the composition of desert sand. Quartz is the main component in many sand types. On tropical islands with white-sand beaches, the main component could likely be calcium carbonate, usually from organic materials that have broken down over time. Not all beaches have magnetic sand. One type of sand is usually magnetic. This is black sand.
Black sand is dark or black in color. Most types of black sand are formed near a volcano and/or because of a volcanic eruption. Others are formed where there are heavy minerals. However, it comes from the mountains. There, granite containing iron ore breaks down into small grains of black sand which then erode and are carried to the sea by rivers.
The black sand in our collection is magnetite, a naturally occurring iron oxide mineral that is formed in almost all igneous and metamorphic rocks. Volcanic minerals and lava fragments contain magnetite. Our sample is from Las Hadas Beach, Mexico. Such sand can be found in other places in the world.
By itself, black sand is not magnetic. It will be magnetized in the presence of another magnet. As each small grain of magnetized black sand itself becomes a temporary magnet, the magnetic field in that spot is strengthened. This results in more black sand. Ultimate creating porcupine-like peaks. In fact, the grains are attracted like iron filings. On some protected beaches it is forbidden to take a large amount of this sand home with you.
Core Sample. Found: Red Sea, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (JN0818)
Core Sample. Found: Red Sea, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (JN0818-2)
Red Sea
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 2020 AD
The Red Sea is an elongated inland sea located between Asia and Africa. The name Red Sea is a direct translation of the Greek 'Erythra Thalassa'. There is a theory that the name comes from the red blue algae that occasionally occur in large quantities in the Red Sea. The water can therefore have a red appearance. The name may also refer to the red rocks on the Gulf of Aqaba that rise from the sea.
The sea is nowhere wider than 360 km (2023). In the north it ends in 2 narrow bays, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Aqaba. The Red Sea borders Israel and Jordan to the north, Saudi Arabia to the east, and Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea to the west.
The Red Sea is located where Africa and Asia have been pulled apart by three plates over the past 10 to 20 million years. This plate tectonics moves further by 1 cm per year. It lies between arid land, desert and semi-desert. The water mass of the Red Sea exchanges its water with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Monsoon winds occur due to heating between land and sea. Due to the remarkably high surface temperatures and the high salinity, this is one of the warmest and saltiest seawater masses in the world. The general average water temperature is 22 °C. The Red Sea is a rich and diverse ecosystem. More than 1200 species of fish have been recorded in the Red Sea, 10% of which are found nowhere else.
Our first specimen is a core sample from the seabed of the Red Sea at a depth of 1795 m. The bottom was drilled to a depth of 359,6 m. This means that our specimen was located at a depth of 2154,6 m below sea level. The underwater expedition found surface temperatures of 28 °C in winter and 34 °C during the summer.
Our second sample was extracted from a water depth of 2169 m and sea bed penetration of 34 m. If we calculate this soil was found at a depth of 2203 m below sea level.
The earliest exploration of the Red Sea was carried out by the Ancient Egyptians. They attempted expeditions around 2500 BC for commercial purposes. The Biblical Book of Exodus tells the account of crossing what was later identified as the Red Sea.
Pleistocene Epoch
(2,58 million yrs. BC to 11.700 yrs. BC)
What happened?
The Pleistocene Epoch is the first and biggest of the two epochs in the Quaternary Period of Earth's history. It is preceded by the Pliocene of the Neogene Period and followed by the Holocene Epoch. This age is best known for a time during which extensive ice sheets and other glaciers formed repeatedly on the landmasses. The more common name is 'Great Ice Age'. The beginning was the cold interval between the two periods.
The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek 'Pleistos' and the Latin 'caenus'. It means 'most new'.
At the end of the Pliocene, the isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama. This caused a faunal interfchange between the two regions and changed the ocean circulation patterns. During the Early Pleistocene archaic humans of hte genus Homo originated in Africa and spread throughout Afro-Eurasia. The Late Pleistocene would witness the spread of humans outside Africa causing extinction of all other human species. They also spread to the Australian continent and the Americas for the first time. For the evolution and history of humans, I advise to follow this in the Prehistory and History on this website.
The Pleistocene Epoch would continue the aridification and cooling down of the Neogene. The climate was strongly depending on the glacial cycle, with the sea levels being up to 120 meter lower than in 2020. Via Beringia was Asia and North America connected and covered most of northern North America by the Laurentide ice sheet.
Rock - Limestone
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC
Limestone is sedimentary rock composed of lime, or calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is made up of the calcareous skeletons of marine organisms, such as coccolites (= exoskeletons of unicellular algae) and foraminifera (= unicellular gene with an external calcareous skeleton). Those fossils are microscopic.
Carbonite - Aragonite
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC
This little specimen of aragonite was found in Fohberg Quarry in Germany.
Cerussite Galena Quartz Fluorite
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC
Our small specimen of the combined minerals cerussite (carbonate), galena (sulfide), quartz (oxide), and fluorite (halide) was found in the Gotteshre Mine Urberg in Germany. This mine was used during 1952-1986 for baryte and fluorite. In2001 a mineral and mining museum was opened in Urberg.
Arsenate - Beudandite
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC
This specimen contains crystals of beudandite, found in the Schalkenburg Vein, near Mägdesprung in Germany.
Gelasian Age
(2,58 million yrs. BC to 1,8 million yrs. BC)
What happened?
The Gelasian Age is the first of four ages of the Pleistocene Epoch in the Quaternary Period. The name of the interval is derived from the town of Gela in Sicily, Italy. The Gelasian follows the Piacenzian of the Pliocene, and is succeeded by the Calabrian. The Gelasian is the official name. In northwestern Europe, alternatives were used and sometimes more common. We follow the official names, if there is one.
About 2,6 million years BC, the first ice caps formed in the northern hemisphere and spread to the lowlands. The sea water began to cool about the same time. There were some key changes in Earth’s climate, oceans and biota. It started the Ice Age in the Gelasian, which is seen as the beginning of the Quaternary ice age. The boundary is characterized by the extinction of the calcareous nannofossils ‘Discoaster pentaradiatus’ and ‘Discoaster surculus’. Another important event was the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field at 2,5 million years BC.
Iron Ore Hematite
± 2,5 million yrs. BC
In its pure state, hematite consists of 70% iron, making it the most important type of iron ore. Chemical formula: Fe2O3, iron oxide.
Hematite is a mineral that can be found in iron ore. It is formed in gangue rocks (= igneous rock that is not deep below the earth's surface and is not solidified at the surface, commercially worthless material), but also occurs in sedimentary rocks. By reacting it with carbon at high temperatures, iron is extracted. The most important hematite deposits formed in sedimentary rocks about 2,4 billion years BC, when Earth's oceans were rich in dissolved iron. Very little oxygen was present in the water.
The cyanobacteria became capable of photosynthesis. The bacteria used sunlight as an energy souce to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates, oxygen and water. This reaction created the first free oxygen into the ocean environment. This combined with the iron to form hematite, which sank to the bottom of the seafloor. It became the rock units as we know it as the banded iron formations. The deposition continued for hundreds of millions of years.
The extraction of hematite is one of mankind's earliest mining activities. It was found in tombs about 80.000 years old. Quarries are already known from the Paleolithic (= the Stone Age), 2,5 million years BC to 10.000 years ago BC.
Mammal - Tapirus Veroensis
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 1 million yrs. BC
Fossil tapirs are abundant in the fossil record of Florida, USA. Tapirus veroensis, also called vero tapir, is an extinct tapir that lived in North America during the Pleistocene. The species was discovered on Vero Beach (Vero), Florida in 1918. The tapir was therefore named after its location.
The animal originated about 55 million years BC in the early Eocene as Perissodactyl or "odd-toed" ungulates. About 9.000 years BC, the species disappeared. The extinction coincides with the disappearance of much of the megafauna after the last ice age. Today (2023), there are 4 species of tapirs. Their closest relatives are the horses and rhinoceroses. The mammal had hoof-like toes. The hind feet had 3 toes and the front feet had 4 toes. Through their evolution over millions of years, these toes had developed and enabled them to walk better in silt, clay, and swampy soil.
The animal was adapted to living in areas with a temperate climate with temperatures approaching freezing. Elk, musk oxen and beavers lived in the same area. The Tapirus veroensis was a herbivore, living on the diet of forest vegetation. The teeth were completely low-crowned with distinct ridges and chisel-shaped incisors. Like all tapir species, the tapir has a trunk-like nose. It uses that proboscis to grab branches and eat foliage. This species was a medium-sized tapir of the size of a lowland tapir with an estimated weight of 232 kg. On average, the animal was about 2 m long and 1 m high. Science suspects that the animal could fend off predators. In general, it looked like a big dark pig with a small trunk. The Tapirus veroensis was a good swimmer that usually stayed close to the water to cool off and avoid predators.
Sea Of Okhotsk
± 2 million yrs. BC
The Sea of Okhotsk is a peripheral sea of the Pacific Ocean. The bottom is up to 3363 m deep. Our soil sample, from the seabed of the Sea of Okhotsk, comes from a depth of 378,1 m. The bottom was still drilled 101,9 m deep there. So our specimen comes from a total depth of 480 m.
There is a big difference between ebb and flow. This difference is up to 13 m. Due to the large difference, large quantities of seawater are pressed between the islands. From November to June the water surface is covered with ice. So thick that even icebreakers can't get through. Ice floes are formed by the large amount of fresh water from the Amur River. The salinity of the upper layer decreases and the freezing point of the sea surface often increases. The freezing air from Siberia forms sea ice in the northwest of the Sea of Okhotsk. The salt sinks to the deeper layers. The heavy water flows eastward to the Pacific Ocean carrying oxygen and nutrients for abundant marine life.
The sea was named after the town of Okhotsk, the first Russian town in the Far East to be named after the Okhota River. Russian navigators sometimes called the sea Damskoye Sea or Kamchatka Sea. Later the name Sea of Okhotsk came into use. In the 1640s, the Russian explorers were the first Europeans to visit the Sea of Okhotsk. The port of Okhotsk was the first and most important port. The Sea of Okhotsk is one of the richest biological resources in the world, filled with diverse types of fish, shellfish and crabs. Large-scale oil and gas extraction is taking place near Sakhalin Island. Twenty-nine zones (2023) of possible oil and gas accumulation have been identified on the Sea of Okhotsk plateau.
Rock - River Sand
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC (Probably ± 2 million yrs. BC)
Sand is a soft, hard, loose and granular material and one of the most abundant natural substances on Earth. Sand consists of very small pieces of stone, grains of sand, which vary in size between 63 micrometers and 2 millimeters.
Sand is transported by water or wind, this is called a sediment. The grains are usually decomposition material of rocks, but can also be organic, such as shells and coral.
This is a microscopic enlargement of River Sand from the valley of the River Maas (Meuse). These deposits belong to the Beegden Formation and were deposited in the lower Pleistocene, about 2 million years ago. The grains themselves are much older and are erosion products from the upstream deposits.
The river sand can be recognized by the rather angular grains and that it is poorly sorted. This means that there are many different sizes of grains in the sand. The difference with rounded and well-sorted dune sand is clearly visible under the microscope.
Sea Urchin - Eupatagus Species
± 2 million yrs. BC
This beautiful irregular sea urchin was collected in Florida, United States. The test or scale is in good condition. There is some minor damage, but this is more common with fossils. The structure is still clearly visible. The white limestone matrix, where the fossil was found, explains the pale color. The matrix has been removed professionally.
Calabrian Age
(1,8 million yrs. BC to 774.000 yrs. BC)
What happened?
The Calabrian Age is the second of four ages of the Pleistocene Epoch. The name is the interval is derived from the Calabria region of in southern Italy. It's followed by the Chibanian Age.
The base of the Calabrian is close to the extinction of the nannoplankton 'Discoaster breweri', the first occurence of 'Gephyrocapsa spp.' and the extinction of 'Globigerinoides extremus'.
The end of this age is marked by the last magnetic pole reversal, that plunged into an ice age and global drying, possibly colder and drier than the Late Miocene through Early Pliocene cold period. Originally the Calabrian was a European faunal stage, based on mollusk fossils, most of brachiopods being extint by then. Many of the mammalian faunal assemblages of the Early Pleistocene started in the Gelasian Age, that preceded the Calabrian.
Alligator Mississippiensis
± 1,7 million yrs. BC to ± 1,1 million yrs. BC
The Alligator mississippiensis (= American alligator) belongs to the Reptilia class. The American alligator is found only in the southeastern coastal plain of the US, where it lives in freshwater swamps such as streams, reservoirs, ponds, lakes, swamps, and bayous, associated with larger rivers in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, North, and South Carolina. It also occurs in Mexico but was made there for the time being.
The Alligator Mississippiensis prefers quiet and calm fresh waters, but sometimes roams in brackish water. It is less tolerant of salt water as the salt glands on its tongue are not working.
The superfamily Alligatoroids includes all crocodiles, fossil and extant, that are more closely related to the American alligator than to the Nile crocodile. Members of this superfamily first emerged in the Late Cretaceous period, about 76 million BC. In addition, fossil alligatoroids have been found all over Eurasia, special land bridges both across the Bering Strait and the North Atlantic Ocean connected to Eurasia in the Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene periods.
There is a good Pleistocene fossil record in Texas. Alligators and caimans split in North America during the Late Cretaceous. The modern American alligator is good at the Pleistocene fossil record. Unlike other extinct alligator species of the same genus, it is almost indistinguishable. It has been established that the Alligator mississippiensis has existed in North America for more than 8 million years.
Armor Plate. Found: Leisey Shell, Florida, US (JN0450)
Armadillo - Dasypus Bellus
± 1,5 million yrs. BC to ± 1 million yrs. BC
The scutes or dermal plates of the Dasypus armadillo are much smaller than those of the typical Holmesina specimens. Most are barely 1 cm wide. This is the only one available. It was found in the Florida river gravel. The beautiful armadillo, Dasypus bellus, is extinct. It lived in North and South America between 1,8 million BC. to 11.000 BC. Thus, this genus lived for about 1,789 million years. It was slightly larger than its living relative, the nine-banded armadillo. Fossils have been found in Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, and Florida. The animals apparently preferred dry scrub environments.
The animal was about 1,2 m long and about 2 times the size of the nine-banded armadillo. The osteoderms (= hard containment under the skin) of the shell and the limbs are about two to two and a half times larger than those of the aforementioned Dasypus novemcintus or nine-banded armadillo. Body size already decreased during the Pleistocene. The body size was probably variable. Fossils of this species have been found in many locations in Florida. Fossils were found in caves, sinkholes, river sites, coastal and lake deposits. Isolated osteoderms are the most common. They are hexagonal elements, including those covering shoulder or pectoral fins. Of course, other types of osteoderms have been found.
There is no evidence of their diet. This is probably also comparable to living relatives. It consisted mainly of insects, but also had other food sources. These animals probably ate fruits, small reptiles, and mammals too.
Rock - Gravel
± 2,58 million yrs. BC to ± 11.700 yrs. BC (Probably ± 1 million yrs. BC)
Gravel is a granular sedimentary rock. It originated from solid rock and is usually transported and deposited by rivers.
The grains are coarser than sand, but finer than stone. Gravel is when grains are larger than 2 millimeters and smaller than 63 millimeters.
The grains are coarser than sand, but finer than stone. Gravel is when grains are larger than 2 millimeters and smaller than 63 millimeters. Gravels come as fine, medium and coarse. One cubic meter of gravel typically weighs about 1.800 kg.
Gravel deposits are a common geological feature. Its being formed as a result of the weathering and erosion of rocks. The action of rivers and waves tends to pile up gravel in large accumulations.
Where natural gravel deposits are insufficient for human purposes, gravel is often produced by quarrying and crushing hard-wearing rocks like sandstone, limestone or basalt. Gravel extracted from gravel pits are widespread depositions of gravel during the Ice Ages.
Whale
± 1 million yrs. BC
The number of whale species increased, ± 13 and 10 million years BC, due to the increase of their food. Small algae that also experienced great diversity in that period. Shore fish (incl. dolphins and porpoises) are at their peak of evolution. They descend from land-dwelling cloven-toed ungulates. ± 50 million years BC, the first whales emerged.
The blue whale is not only the largest animal on Earth, but also the largest creature that has ever lived on our planet. A colossal fossil of the whale confirms that this prehistoric whale was the largest, with a total length of 25 m. It is slightly smaller than the largest blue whales ever measured. They had a length of ± 33 m. A whale of this size during that period is a mystery. The planet then, went through a number of ice ages, during which massive amounts of water turned into ice and sea levels dropped dramatically. The remains of whales that died during the Pleistocene, even when they washed ashore, now lie many meters below sea level.
Food availability for whales changed drastically around that time, due to a global decline in sea temperatures. The food supply was concentrated in places of upwelling cold water from the deep, with a high density of prey. There is no certainty about this yet. Large whale fossils are difficult to recover, study and describe and therefore our understanding is incomplete.
Gastropod - Land Snail (Unidentified Species)
± 1 million yrs. BC
Thanks to the hard shells of Cenozoic snails, they can be well preserved if they have not been descaled.
This fossil has been found at Plage-Blanche in Morocco. It is a vast forty-kilometer strip of white sand at the heart of an ecological park. A very tranquil beach with almost no human signs. As on any beach shells can be found. Just like this one. The remote location as all beach, virtually untouched by people.
Organic Mineral - Copal
± 1 million yrs. BC to ± 1000 AD
Copal is a semi-fossil resin that is found in many places in the tropics. In addition to amber and other fossil resins, there is copal. To put it simply, copal is not quite a fossil, hardened resin yet. The age can vary from a few decades to several thousand years. Like amber, there can also be inclusions of insects. The Madagascar copal is quite well known. It also occurs in many other places in the world.
Copal is lighter in color than the older resins. It is slightly yellowish and often very transparent. The hue can range from almost colorless and transparent to bright yellowish brown. The common inclusions are also very visible. Copal is recognizable because it is still sticky, unlike amber.
The name copal is probably derived from the Nahuatl 'copali', which means resin. Nahuatl is a language spoken by the original inhabitants of present-day (2022) Mexico. The Aztecs and Toltecs also spoke the language.
It can be collected from living trees or mined as a fossil. The copal that is pulled straight from a tree is called jackass copal. It is used in the manufacture of varnish in India and China. It does not occur in European trade. Our copal was found and exploited at various locations in the rainforest around Sambava and Vohemar. This copy was also first sold as “Madagascar amber”. The places would be exhausted.
Zhamanshin Impactite
± 900.000 yrs. BC
The Zhamanshin Crater was created in Kazakhstan about one million years BC. The crater is located about 100 km northeast of the small sea, 40 km southwest of the village of Irghiz and is known as one of the most recent and violent meteorite impacts on Earth. The crater has a diameter of 14 km and reaches a depth of 300 m. The place is best known for its irgizites, beautiful small droplets and wispy ribbons of jet-black glass. Irgizites are found near the associated impact crater. Tektites are usually hundreds of kilometers from the crater of origin. The earth has been stirred over several layers throughout the area and there are fossilized corals and shells on the surface of the soil. There are also many tektites and several types of molten rock. The less dense foamy rocks and dark dense impact glass are examples of this. This is a result of a transformation of the rock as due to the heat released during the impact.
The released energy was equivalent to several dozen Hiroshima bombs. It had the same effect as a so-called “nuclear winter.” The impact caused fires and smoke emissions that wiped out all animal and plant species within a radius of several hundred kilometers. It was not big enough to cause a mass extinction.
Impactites are terrestrial rocks that have been affected by asteroids or comets. After such events, the Earth's crust is melted, shattered, or shaken. Sometimes new minerals are formed because of these high-pressure events. An impactite can be found on or under the bottom of a crater, in the rim or in the ejecta (= material that is projected out of the crater after impact). This impactite shows good layering and has many gas bubbles. The material comes from an impact that occurred during the Pleistocene. It is one of the youngest known impact craters.
Tektite - Irgizite
± 900.000 yrs. BC
Irgizite is created about 900.000 years BC by a large meteor impact in present-day (2022) Kazakhstan. The impact left a crater no less than 14 km in diameter. The meteorite is believed to have been large enough to cause a global winter for years to come. Irgizite remained after the impact because terrestrial sand and parts of the meteorite fused together due to the enormous heat and pressure.
This impact glass is called tektite. It is the most detailed tektite known on Earth. The recovered pieces often consist of fused threads and droplets with beautiful swirls of pure black glass. Small round spheres are usually visible on the surface. This indicates that a mist of tiny glass droplets was released during the impact and was captured as a time capsule in the irgizite.
Tektite - Darwin Glass
± 816.000 yrs. BC
Many craters around the world have glass formed by the heat of the impact. The glass of the Mount Darwin Crater is quite different. Instead of black glass, it is a grayish green. It is found with folds and twists, as well as masses that look like large drops. It is one of the most interesting melting glasses for collectors.
There are two types of Darwin glass. The first type is white to green. The second type is dark green to black. It contains less silica and more magnesium and iron. The chemical differences could be explained by the fact that they also contain extraterrestrial material from the meteorite in addition to metamorphic rocks. The argon-argon dating method dates the glass to about 816.000 BC.
Chibanian Age
(774.000 yrs. to 129.000 yrs. BC)
What happened?
The Chibanian Age is defined by the most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic field, called the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal. The whole flip is thought to have took about 22.000 years. A cliff wall in Japan’s Chiba holds some of the clearest evidence for the major geological event.
The Chiba cliffs are located near the city of Ichihara, southeast of Tokyo. Volcanic ash in the layers indicate its age about 770.000 years BC. When the rock was molten, minerals with iron suspended in the molten soup pointed in the direction of Earth’s magnetic field. The iron-containing minerals were trapped in whatever direction they were pointing at the time. The Chiba cliffs hold clear signals of changing polarity and an abundance of microscopic marine fossils.
The Chibanian Age is the first time Japan has been represented in a geological age. Previously it was known as the Middle Pleistocene. It is preceded by the Calabrian Age and succeeded by the still unnamed Age (in 2021), but proposed Tarantian. While beginning with the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, it ends with the onset of the Eemian interglacial period.
Tektite - Indochinite
± 700.000 yrs. BC
Indochinite is a black tektite. They are melted pieces of rock and sand that formed after a meteorite impact. It is not the meteorite itself. They are found in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
The impact formed a large mushroom cloud that likely extended into the upper atmosphere. The trunk formed a superheated convection column that both baked the tektites and sent them into orbit as far as 11.000 km. All the volatiles such as water disappeared from it after it was melted under pressure by the impact and ejected heated by the convection column.
This tektite is known as indochinite because it is found in the former French colonies of Indochina, from Australia to Indonesia, plus Thailand. It is estimated that it was formed about 700.000 years BC.
Boulder Clay
± 200.000 yrs. BC
Originated by deposition by land ice (= glaciers). It was the typical deposit of the Glacial Period in northern Europe and North America.
Boulder clay is a type of soil consisting of an unsorted mixture of boulders, gravel, sand and loam. It is distinguished from other clay that way. The clay is scraped from the top layer of older rock by the movement of a glacier or ice sheet. Ice sheet pushes rocks, boulders and everything in its path. In turn it wears the rock into silt-like grain, which makes up the clay.
Boulder clay is deposited by land ice. This poorly sorted sediment arises because rocks and deposits, crushed by the ice, remain after the melting of the land ice. Boulder clay is usually clayey and poorly permeable. The color of the clay depends on the rocks that were crushed. Where ice has passed over chalk, the clay may be quite white and chalky.
The boulders are held within the clay in an irregular manner, and they vary in size. Often, they possess a flat side or sole. If they are hard rocks, they frequently bear grooves and scratches caused by contact with other rocks while held firmly in the moving glacier ice. The boulders belong to districts over which the ice has travelled. In some regions they are mainly limestones or sandstones. But they can be granite, basalts, gneisses, etc.
Except for foraminifera, which have been found in boulder clay, fossils are practically unknown. With a few exceptions in marine districts.
Unnamed Late Pleistocene 'Tarantian' Age
(129.000 yrs. BC to 11.700 yrs. BC)
What happened?
The unofficial Late Pleistocene Age follows the Middle Pleistocene and precedes the Holocene Epoch. Sometimes its presented as the Tarantine Age.
The main feature during this time was glaciation. Many megafauna became extinct during this age and continued in that the Holocene. This is also the time with many of the early human migrations and the extinction of the last remaining archaic human species.
Jaw. Found: Florida, US (JN0820)
Dire Wolf - Aenocyon Dirus
± 100.000 yrs. BC
The dire wolf was a canid and one of the most successful predators of the Late Pleistocene, comparable to that of the Smilodon. This muscular carnivore dominated from Alaska to Bolivia. The animal had a wonderful bite and grab tactic. It fed on a wide variety of large prey, including bison, camels, horses, mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths.
The specimen is a fragment of the dire wolf's jaw found on private property in Florida. The region of Florida was a savannah ecosystem teeming with large mammals during the Pleistocene. The first dire wolf remains were discovered on the banks of the Ohio River, near Evansville, Indiana, USA. Later it was identified as a new species of Canis dirus. The animal was strikingly similar to the modern gray wolf. These two animals were about the same size, however, the dire wolf's bones are much thicker and the skull, including the jaws and teeth, is much larger. However, it later turned out that the dire wolf is not closely related to the modern gray wolf. The genetic line between the two animals passed about 5,5 years BC. apart. Research from 2021 described that the dire wolf supports a separate genus Aenocyon.
Estimates suggest that the average dire wolf weighed 40% more than the gray wolf. According to the theory, the increased power would be useful when wearing down larger prey. It is possible that the dire wolves were more physical when hunting, using their body weight to a great advantage. Remains found in Rancho La Brea tar pits suggest that the dire wolf was a pack hunter. They were represented almost ten times more than other mammals. This massive dog was a force to be reckoned with, weighing over 68 kg and a bite force stronger than any modern species. This adaptation made it perfect at taking out megafauna herbivores. It gave it an edge in the fight against its biggest competitor, the saber-toothed cat, Smilodon. The Smilodon was also an apex predator. The rivalry of the two species is supported by their proximity at certain fossil sites.
Despite their size and numbers, the dire wolf disappeared with many other species at the end of the Pleistocene. Rapid climate change played an important role in this large-scale extinction. The introduction of humans in America must also have played a role, as humans sought the same prey.
Jaw with Tooth. Found: Andenne, Namur, Belgium (JN0544)
Artic Fox - Alopex Lagopus
± 100.000 yrs. BC to ± 10.000 yrs. BC
The Arctic fox is quite small. It measures up to 60 cm in length with a tail of about 30 cm. Their winter coat is thick and long to protect against the frosty winters in the tundra. They often cross Arctic Sea ice to move between land masses. Fossils are known throughout Europe. The bones are small compared to other Pleistocene mammals. They are less noticeable in the waste heaps of sand dredgers. Many of the finds, including our specimen, were made in cave deposits and fissure fills. For avid collectors, such a find is an exclusive possession. Some finds are understandably identified as dogs.
The fossil already several thousands of years old, the arctic fox is a still living species. The Arctic fox lives above 60° latitude. During the last ice age, the animal lived in a wider area. Fossil finds were made in large parts of Europe and Siberia. The Arctic fox has relatively small ears, dense white fur in winter, a stocky tail, and short legs. These typical adaptations to the cold ensure that the animal can survive temperatures down to -70°C. It is a true inhabitant of the cold tundra. Fossils are an indicator of a cold climate. Arctic foxes are one of the few animals that live on the ice. The most important prey is probably the tundra lemming. The arctic fox has excellent adaptability and eats carrion. It is much more of a carnivore than the European fox. This is reflected in his teeth. Arctic foxes have remarkably long canine teeth. Such teeth are a feature of active hunters. The European fox has shorter canines, wider molars, and less pointed crowns. This one is much more of a scavenger.
Arctic foxes live in large burrows in frost-free, slightly elevated ground. These are complex systems of tunnels that are spread over 1000 m2. These burrows sometimes exist for decades and are used by many generations. They tend to select caves that are easily accessible with many entrances, free of snow and ice. It is then easier to dig in. They are oriented to the south to bring heat into the burrow. The structure is maze-like to evade predators and allow a quick escape.
Lower Molar. Found: Lancefield Swamp, Victoria, Australia (JN0446)
Giant Kangaroo - Macropus Titan
± 80.000 yrs. BC to ± 50.000 yrs. BC
The Macropus titan is an extinct species of kangaroo, a marsupial that lived in the Pleistocene Epoch. This species most closely resembled the extant kangaroo species Macropus giganteus, the eastern gray kangaroo. There is some doubt whether it is a separate species. The two look extremely similar. The titan differs only in its larger size.
The size of these giant kangaroos may have affected their capacity. Increasing drought and greater distances needed to find food and water daily put the less mobile species at a disadvantage. Several bones from Lancefield, Victoria, show abnormal conditions. Osteoarthritis, “knobby jaw”, periostitis (= inflammation of the periosteum) and osteomyelitis (= bone inflammation) are indicated diseases. The lumpy jaw points to a long history of this disease.
The finds in Lancefield Swamp were supposed to help date it. The purpose of the study was to date the age and test the circumstances of death. It would help to trace the long-running debate about megafauna extinction. Researchers found that most animals died in their prime. It appears that the animals are subject to drought stress. It suggests that the drought would have been one of the major impacts at the time.
Cave Bear - Ursus Spelaeus
± 40.000 yrs. BC
The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was one of the giants of the Pleistocene. A distant ancestor of the modern brown bear. The females were noticeably smaller than the males, so they were incorrectly viewed as a different species. Despite their enormous size, these gentle giants are thought to primarily forage for food and only attack other animals in an emergency.
Specimens of these gigantic animals have been found in various places in Europe. In a cave in Switzerland, skulls were clearly deliberately placed, indicating an early form of worship by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. This practice would ultimately be responsible for the animal's demise.
Like the brown bear, cave bears are believed to have used caves as natural shelters for their hibernation, a factor that led to their deaths. The encroachment of man, who was also looking for shelter, led to the shrinking of the habitat of the cave bear.
Like its current descendant, the brown bear, the cave bear, despite its enormous size, is thought to be essentially a food-seeker that mainly lived on fruit and sometimes ate fish. It is possible that they also ate each other, when food became scarcer. They either ate the remains of cave bears that had not stored enough fat to survive hibernation, or even killed it to survive, while seeking shelter and food as their habitats disappeared. Their hibernation also made them vulnerable to cave lions and cave hyenas with which they shared their habitat.
Large numbers of bones have been found in caves in England, Germany and Austria since the early 19th century.
Evolution has not made the bears much different. Certainly not when it comes to the inside. The skeletal elements of the living brown bear and the extinct cave bear are largely the same in shape. The format is inconclusive.
First of all, it is striking that the molars are quite large. The chewing surface is fairly flat and has a few low cusps. The cusps have a rounded top and do not feel sharp.
The more the molar has been used, the lower the lumps are. Wear first occurs in the center of the chewing surface and then spreads to the edges. The angular teeth of the males were clearly larger.
The cave bear is classified in the order of predators. However, this bear was a strict vegetarian, a trend that had already started with its predecessor Deninger's bear. Based on limb fossils, it has been determined that the cave bear was fatter and heavier than the brown bear.
The oldest cave bear fossils date back to 250.000 years BC, but some believe that they are not older than 130.000 years BC. The cave bear lived up to ± 16,000 years BC and may become extinct as a result of its strict vegetarian diet. The time the cave bear could use to build up a layer of bacon on which to live all winter was getting shorter and shorter due to the changing climate.
Cave bear remains have been found in connection with early human habitation. About 50.000 years BC the human population grew strongly and all those people needed a roof over their heads. That's why they put the bears out and they didn't survive our ancestors' stunt.
The scientists studied the DNA of the cave bear's remains to find out what developments the animal went through. The decline of bears turned out to be closely related to the rise of humans. That must have been the last nail in the coffin. The cave bear was doomed to die anyway.
Meteorite Agoudal
± 40.000 yrs. BC
In 2000, two pieces of iron were collected in the Agoudal area, the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. These were sold to tourists. One piece was sold in 2011 to a dealer in Errich, who recognized it as an iron meteorite.
Meteor hunters started systematically searching the area with metal detectors in 2012. Many meteorites were discovered. Many pieces were several centimeters below the ground. The largest piece weighed 60 kg, and was buried 50 cm. The total mass of all found pieces is more than 100 kg. Hundreds of small pieces, like our example, weigh less than 100 g. many pieces between 100 – 1000 g, and a few pieces are more than 1 kg. Most of the collected material occurs as irregular shrapnel between 2-5 cm, and usually has a thin weathering shell. Some spherical fragments are rounded and show a well-developed melting crust.
The meteorite is officially called Agoudal but is also known as "Imilchil" after the place where the first pieces were found. It belongs to a rare class within the iron meteorites. Until today (2022) there is still uncertainty about the exact location of the impact crater. It must have been a huge meteorite impact. The meteorite is estimated to be more than 40.000 years old. Researchers believe the impact is responsible for creating the two famous Moroccan lakes “Islit” and “Tislit” in the Atlas Mountains. The crater is more than 100 meters deep.
Insect - Cybister Species
± 40.000 yrs. BC
The La Brea Tar Pits are among the most well-known petroleum spills in the world. Such seeps can form lake-like formations over millennia. Tar pits are formed by hydrocarbons stored in deep oil and gas reservoirs leaking from folded layers of sedimentary rock and bubbling to the top. Fractures in the rock allow this tar to rise to the surface and form a thick, sticky asphalt.
Unwary wildlife is caught. Animal remains excavated at La Brea include 700 distinct species. Some are older than 40.000 years old. The La Brea Tar Pits in California contain remnants of ancient life. In the bubbling oil, those fossils reveal information about what the planet used to be like. Beetles, foxes, wolves, Smilodon, coyotes, rabbits, a bald eagle and more have all been discovered in the tar. It paints an incredible picture of the Pleistocene ecosystem. The remains speak of an ancient cycle of life and death.
40.000 years ago, the La Brea Tar Pits were a natural environment of oil spills. They were masked with dead leaves and plants, making the surface a sticky trap. When prey animals became entangled in these seeps, larger predators could be attracted. They too fell into the trap. Once trapped in the viscous tar, the animals die. Over time, the tar would bury them and seal their bodies in durable material for thousands of years. After the animal has been digested by the pit, remains are surrounded with asphalt that protects them from weathering and decomposition. This provides excellent preservation and solidification, which often appears with a deep brown tint due to the surrounding tar.
All fossils are products of petroleum seeps, as such they are dirty and greasy. They smell faintly of charcoal or tar. One specimen is a petrified rare large fossil beetle, Cybister species, preserved in tar from the Pleistocene "Rancho La Brea Tar" pits in California. It was found decades ago. The location has been closed to collectors for many years. This large, unusual predatory diving beetle is very well preserved in a three-dimensional way. The detail is excellent. The reticulation (= a pattern of lines reminiscent of a net) of the wing covers is very visible. The black insect contrasts beautifully with the surface of the tar matrix. Due to the nature of the animal's entrapment, clusters of many creatures of varied species can be found in a cluster. It is possible other insects are trapped in this matrix.
Steppe Plant Fossils
± 30.000 yrs. BC
The plants all come from between the matted hair of a mammoth from a period when mammoths roamed the steppe. A steppe is a type of landscape in which no trees grow, but mainly grasses. No trees grow due to lack of rain. When it rains, the yellowish grass suddenly becomes green and herbaceous shrubs bloom.
The mammoth steppe or steppe tundra was a special form that spread over much of Eurasia during the cold periods of the Pleistocene. In contrast to a grassy steppe, herbaceous vegetation grew here.
The large-scale formation of land ice and the retreat of the seas resulted in a dry continental climate. Especially along riverbeds, a layer of loam was deposited by the wind. These were ideal conditions for the development of the mammoth steppe.
The plant species included grasses, herbaceous plants, dwarf birch (max. 1 m), arctic willow and sedge (= herbs with a grass-like growth form). The mammoth steppe otherwise looked partially like a current (2021) tundra. The vegetation was perfect food for the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, saiga, muskox, wisent and wild horses.
Elephant - Stegodon
± 30.000 yrs. BC tot ± 12.000 yrs. BC
Stegodonts were present about 11,6 million BC to ± 4100 BC. Fossils are found in Africa and Asia. The name Stegodon comes from the Greek 'Stego' and 'odon'. This means "covered tooth" which refers to the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars. It is a genus of the extinct subfamily Stegodontidae of the order elephant shaped Proboscidea. Stegodon was one of the biggest proboscideans. The size varied by species. They are comparable in size to today's (2022) elephants. Some species could reach 8 meters in length and four meters in height at the withers. They could weigh up to 12,5 tons. The tusks were sometimes 3 meters. It even happened that the animal could not get its trunk between its tusks. They were mostly found on the mainland. Stegodonts living on smaller islands usually resulted in further dwarfism.
In the past, it was believed that stegodonts were the ancestors of the known elephants and mammoths. Rather, the current studies show that they have no modern descendants. The main difference between stegodonts and elephants is found in the molars. Stegodon molars consist of a series of low, roof-shaped ridges, which can be seen in our specimen. The ridges of molars of mammoth and elephant have a high-crowned plate. The origin of the elephant lies in Africa while that of stegodonts can be found in Asia. Also, stegodon's skeleton was much more robust and compact than that of the elephant.
Radiolarians (white dots) an Diatoms (White stripes). Found: Messina, Sicily, Italy (JN0592)
Radiolarians & Diatoms
± 21.000 yrs. BC
Radiolaria are a group of very small, single-celled organisms. We find them in all seas. They have occurred since the Cambrian. Radiolaria are not real animals, as we see animals. They are classified as either tribe, rootstock, class, or subgenus. The Radiolaria come in numerous types and shapes. The size can vary from 0,03 - 2 mm. A good microscope is needed to view them properly. Our pictured specimens were magnified 600 times. We couldn't do better to visualize them. They are notable for their intricate structures of their skeleton of silica. The shape of it can vary greatly. It can be shapes from simple spherical mesh with spikes to intricate geometric shapes. The actual cell nucleus is enclosed by a horn-like capsule.
They live in symbiosis (= together) with microscopic algae, also unicellular, which attach themselves around protoplasm. The waste products of the Radiolaria are the food of the algae. These produce oxygen that Radiolaria need. Radiolarians move vertically. The reason for these rising and descending movements (2022) is not yet known. They live among the zooplankton. Their stony skeleton does not dissolve in seawater and sinks to the bottom when the Radiolaria dies. The skeletons form a special deposit and can have a thickness of tens to hundreds of meters. When that deposit hardens it is called radiolarite. Such deposits are important guide fossils.
Diatoms also have skeleton of silica. These have completely different shapes. They range from 0,01 – 0,1 mm. Diatoms are unicellular algae with an exoskeleton of silica. This consists of two halves, a lid, and a box. Through a gap the diatom absorbs nutrients and excretes waste. Reproduction is by cell division. Not all cells are the same size. Because over time some cells get smaller and smaller with the reproduction, an occasional phase of sexual reproduction is inserted. The resulting cells again reach their maximum size. When there are enough nutrients, diatoms can multiply quickly. Diatoms themselves form the food for a large part of the zooplankton and as producers are at the base of the food chain. These diatoms account for about half of the primary production in the oceans.
Foot Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0017)
Ivory from the Tusk. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0018)
Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0021)
Skull Part Exterior. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0020)
Skull Part Inside. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0020)
Mammoth - Mammuthus Primigenius
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The elephant is related to the woolly mammoth. He had a lot of hair to potect himself from the cold during the Ice Age. Like elephants, they are herbivors. After the end of the Ice Age, ± 12.000 years BC, it became increasingly difficult. Due to the warmer weather their habitat became smaller and smaller. About 4000 years BC, the last mammoths, then pushed all the way back to northern Siberia, became extinct.
There have been regular ice ages over the past millions of years. The polar cap never reached as far south as Belgium, but we do notice the influence of the ice ages because the landscape is covered with a thick layer of loess (= fine soil, brought in by the polar wind during the ice ages). The North Sea was almost completely dry in the Ice Age, and where the seabed is now (2021), there were large plains on which herds of mammoths and other animals lived. As a result, fishermen now often find bones of mammoths at the bottom of the North Sea.
The difference between ivory from mammoths and elephants can be seen. The difference is not in the color, you can be fooled there. But in the schreger lines (= cross-hatchings), they are clearly visible on the smoothly finished transverse side of the piece of ivory.
Bones are, after the teeth, the hardest parts of the body. While soft tissues deteriorate quite quickly, bones last longer. Yet bone also consists of organic material. Sooner or later it decays unless the bone becomes fossil. But that is rarely the case.
Foot and hand bones are small bones that are more easily rinse along by river activity and end up elsewhere than nearby the skeleton. Or they are removed from the skeleton because scavengers, such as hyenas, first ripped off the legs and took them away. Sometimes food tracks are clearly visible.
The woolly mammoth had two molars in each half of the jaw. The molar in the front deteriorated little by little due to chewing grass. A new molar kept growing in the back, slowly pushing the front one out of the jaw. For example, a mammoth changed six molars per half of the jaw during its lifetime, just as with elephants. The complete series consists of three milk molars and three true molars.
A mammoth tooth is made up of lamellae, which can be compared to the slices of a sliced cake. The elongated ridges of the chewing surface are in fact only the top edges of the lamellae.
In general, the successive molars increase in size and the number of lamellae in each molar is higher. So, it is a matter of counting slats to find out how old the mammoth got.
Mammoths could live to about 60 years old, just like elephants today (2021).
Viewed from the side, the skull of a woolly mammoth is remarkably high, almost pointed. The inner part consists largely of an open spongy structure. Because of this construction, the skull has a large surface for the attachment of neck muscles, but still relatively light and sturdy.
He certainly needed strong neck muscles to counterbalance the enormous tusks. In older mammoth bulls, the tusks could reach a length of four meters with a weight of nearly eighty kilograms.
Molar. Found: Lathum, The Netherlands (JN0019)
Molar. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0023)
Atlas Vertebra. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0025)
Rib. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0026)
Heel Bone. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0027)
Shoulder Blade. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0029)
Ulna. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0030)
Steppe Bison - Bison Priscus
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The steppe bison or steppe wisent is an extinct bovine specie. This steppe bison is closely related to the current (2021) American bison and to the European bison. The differences between these species and the steppe bison mainly lie in the larger horn and body size of the steppe bison.
The Bison priscus could reach a height at the withers (= shoulder height) of two meters, while the ends of its half-meter-long horns were one meter apart.
Extinct at the end of the Pleistocene (between 15.000 and 10.000 years BC) when its habitat disappeared due to climate change. The smaller bison species did survive, which is why some historians point to human hunting as the main reason for its extinction. Its habitat, the grassy plain of the Pleistocene steppe, stretched from Western Europe (hence the finds in the Dutch North Sea) to Asia and Alaska.
The grinding bite of the steppe bison was perfectly adapted to the processing of tough grasses and mosses. The animal species had strong teeth. Its food consisted mainly of grass, leaves, herbs, bark, young shoots, acorns and berries.
Sometimes fossil bones are found on the beach. These are usually bones from animals from the last Ice Age. The North Sea was largely dry at the time. The area was part of the so-called mammoth steppe.
The atlas is the first vertebra of the spine on which your head turns. In this case the head of a steppe bison. The second vertebra has a thorn, which falls into the center hole of the atlas. Through the smaller holes on the side, the veins and nerves ran to the head of the beast. Man, also has one.
Bones from the last Ice Age are usually dark in color. Blue Babe is the most famous mummy of an Alaska Bison priscus. This cadaver was excavated and described extensively by the paleontologist Dale Guthrie in 1990. Through this mummy we learned a lot about the appearance of this animal.
Hand and foot bones are most common in both museum collections and private collections. They are quite massive and are fished almost undamaged. These bones are very characteristic.
The steppe bison was a large bovine animal with a shoulder height of more than two meters. There is a clear picture of the animal's appearance, which comes from the many cave paintings.
In young animals, the radius and ulna (= elbow-bone) can rotate around each other and rub against each other. They show chafing marks. In older animals, shedding spots are no longer visible, because they are slightly fused at the places where the radius and ulna meet.
A fossil like this humerus in our collection comes from the bottom of the North Sea. It has come up as by-catch by fishermen. About 10.000 years BC, the sea level rose and the land, what we now know (2021) as the North Sea, was submerged. As fishermen change their fishing methods, such fossils are becoming increasingly rare.
Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0024)
Humerus. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0028)
Atlas Vertebra. Found: Rhine, Germany (JN0035)
Antlers. Found: Rhine, Germany (JN0042)
Red Deer - Cervus Elaphus
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The red deer occurs almost continuously in Europe from the Middle Pleistocene. It is currently our largest native land mammal. It is an extremely successful species, because it can survive in different habitats and is adapted to both warmer and colder climate conditions. The oldest fossil remains of the red deer in western Europa date from ± 400.000 years BC.
The fact that the animal is not fussy about food choices plays an important role in the success of the species. Red deer love to feed on branches and leaves as much as on grass. They do prefer forests with clearings, but they did not disappear when the forests gave way to a cold and dry grass steppe in the last ice age. The red deer felt as much at home among wild boars and foxes in the oak forests as among woolly rhinoceroses and cave lions on the mammoth steppe in the last Ice Age.
The origin of the red deer is not clear. The animal appears at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene and then takes over the role of the deer from Tegelen. The oldest representatives have antlers without a "crown".
The atlas is the first vertebra of the spine. At the top of the atlas are two large joint surfaces on which the sheaths rest. The name atlas refers to the mythological figure Atlas, who had to carry the celestial vault on his shoulders.
The atlas differs greatly from the other vertebrae due to the absence of the vertebral body (= the front part of the vertebra). It acts as a pivot and supports the skull. The vertebra allows the head to move forwards and backwards, as with the yes-nod.
Together with the other six vertebrae, the atlas is part of the cervical vertebrae. Then the thoracic vertebrae follow. The cervical vertebrae have the function of protecting the spinal cord, blood vessels and brain stem. They provide support and stability and allow for movement by positioning the head. They are light and mobile connected to each other. A bigger distinction is the larger vertebral hole, called a foramen. The atlas is an open vertebra through which the nerves run. The blood vessel that provides the blood flow to the head also runs through this vertebra. The spinal cord transports nutrients and waste products from the central nervous system and runs through the atlas to the skull.
The health of the deer can be read from the antlers. A healthy animal has stronger and heavier antlers than a sick animal, but not necessarily more ducks. The buck uses it in fighting, but also in the mating season to impress the does.
The antlers consist of a main bar that splits into several side bars (= ducks). The ends of the antlers together form the crown. It is different from the hoe antler of the giant deer, which co-existed with the red deer in the last Ice Age. The size of the antlers is the same as that of the giant deer in proportion to their body. An average antler is 70 cm long. It can grow up to 90 cm. The weight can vary from 4 to 10 kg.
Every year the buck sheds its antlers and must rebuild it afterwards. The new antlers are on average fully grown in July. In August, the bark skin (= the skin around the antlers) starts to itch and the males remove it by rubbing the antlers along branches and tree trunks. In late summer, the hiker often sees patches of skin hanging from the branches.
Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0037)
Antlers. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0040)
Reindeer - Rangifer Tarandus
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The reindeer is also called the caribou. Eskimos have made the reindeer their pets. But reindeer also live in the wild. It is a great grazer. They live together in a large herd and mainly eat moss, but also herbs, grasses, and branches of trees.
The name "caribou" comes from the Native Americans and means "scraper". If their environment is covered with snow and ice, the reindeer know how to scratch it away with their hooves to reach this frozen food. Hence probably the name. The wolf is the main enemy of the reindeer, which mainly seizes weak animals.
It is used for its fur, meat, milk and as a draft animal. Santa's sleigh is also pulled by reindeer.
During the last ice age there were large herds of reindeer in the Netherlands. Their presence indicated that it was bitterly cold in those regions at the time. Today they live in areas with a polar climate. However, Dutch reindeer bones show that reindeer mainly occurred during short periods during an ice age when the climate became slightly warmer. In a short time, the climate could change. Reindeer would then have no problems. With their dense fur, they were able to withstand the cold.
They have very broad hooves that are widely spread, which allow them to walk well over the swampy tundra. The strong side hooves also touch the ground when walking and make a clicking sound like castanets.
Reindeer bones are among the most numerous fossils of Pleistocene mammals in the Netherlands. They are fished in large quantities from the bottom of the North Sea, including bones and skull parts and characteristic antlers. Reindeer bones also regularly come to light at sand extraction sites along the major rivers. A complete skeleton has never been found in the Netherlands. Intact skeletons are one of the great rarities, also abroad. The most complete skeleton was found in Denmark.
Striking in the Dutch material is the occurrence of size differences. Bones of large reindeer are usually found on the North Seabed. The suction holes further inland reveal a mixture of large and small bones. The difference in size is not easy to explain. One possibility is that the bones date back to different periods and that the reindeer became smaller and smaller during the Pleistocene. More likely, populations of different sizes of reindeer lived in different places at the same time. The groups were too far apart to mix. Where little food was available, the reindeer developed dwarfism. Where there was a lot of food, they got bigger.
The reindeer belongs to the deer family. Usually only the males, the bucks, wear antlers. This is different for the reindeer. The female, the doe, also has antlers. The buck's antlers are bigger.
Bucks use their antlers to fight each other over the females. The bigger the antlers, the more impressive the buck makes. The doe uses her antlers to protect her young and her food. The antlers always have a characteristic forward-facing branch. While the buck's antlers can reach over a meter in length and have all kinds of intricate ramifications, the doe's antlers are only a few inches long. It consists of a slender and thin main bar, which only branches in a few points.
Why reindeer does are grazed has long been a matter of debate. Nowadays (2021) paleontologists (= scientists who study fossils) tend towards a social explanation for this phenomenon.
Piece of Antlers. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0038)
Vertebra. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0039)
Giant Deer - Megaloceros Giganteus
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The giant deer is not the largest deer that lived in Europe. It lived in a park landscape with rich vegetation.
Most of the skeletons were found in Ireland, excellently preserved in layers of clay beneath peat bogs. That is why the animal was sometimes also called the Irish giant deer or Irish elk. It is a misleading name, because its distribution was much wider and lived all over Europe.
The giant deer had the largest antlers of all deer ever. Only the males grew the antlers on the head. They could reach a wingspan of 360 cm.
Every winter the deer shed their heavy 25 kg of antlers. The antlers are recognizable by their size and characteristic shape. Around the base of the antlers, as with all antlers, is a wide rosary (= a ring of bone with all kinds of pits, holes for the passage of blood vessels) and pearl-shaped protrusions.
At the base is a eye branch, the size of a large hand. It is located just above the eyes and visually enlarged the head. The main bar of the antlers is thick and turns upwards to the side in an s-shaped curve. It soon widens into a hoe-shaped leaf. On the outside and inside of this leaf, you can often see deep grooves, which indicate where blood vessels have run, that provided the antlers with nutrients. At all edges the hoe-shaped blade ends in graceful points, which curl upwards and backwards.
A typical feature of the giant deer was the hump on the back. The fourth and fifth vertebrae had long spines, to which the strong neck muscles were anchored to support the head and heavy antlers. This bulge can sometimes be seen in cave drawings.
Fossils of the Giant Deer have been known for centuries and have led to much research, questions, and discussion. When the scientific method was still in its infancy and the world view was determined by religious dogmas (= philosophy), the simple fact that these fossils existed gave rise to discussion.
The predominant view was that God created a perfect world. Extinction was unthinkable therein. God would never allow that. So, there were plenty of voices claiming that this animal still had to live somewhere.
Atlas Vertebra. Found: NW Overijssel,, The Netherlands (JN0043)
Hoof. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0044)
Ancient Horse - Equus cf. Caballus
± 20.000 yrs. BC
Horses exist from about 70 million years BC. The horses of that time had a completely different appearance. Many primordial species are extinct.
Yet man learned to use the horse much later. The horses lived in jungles. This is because there were no plains. The horse was completely adapted to live in a jungle living on leaves and fruits. He survived it easy alone. But about 20 million years BC the Earth changed: there were more grass plains and the jungle diminished unwise. Some horses went to live on grassy plains, others remained in the remaining jungle.
But the horses on the plains had to adapt. They could no longer eat delicious fruits and leaves but had to make do with grass. The grass made the animals bigger and heavier. At one point, the heaviest horses were 500 pounds. And predators could easily find horses on plains, so nature thought that horses should run instead of hide. The feet of horses became more and more hooves. That way they could move more quickly. But, of course, all of this happened over thousands of years.
During most of the Ice Age, the Equus spread from America to Europe and Asia. When the horse became extinct in America, it came to an end. They were killed by the Native Americans.
The horses now living in America were imported by the Spanish after the discovery of America. Gradually, four types of primeval horses emerged in Europe and Asia, differing in appearance according to their habitats. Only the tarpan and the Przewalski horse did not die out. In 1887 the tarpan also became extinct. The Przewalski horse was last seen alive in Mongolia in 1967.
The neck consists of an atlas and a turner. A long neck offers the possibility of natural and non-forced handling (= reducing pressure on the reins). The neck must have sufficient length and muscling and should not protrude too deeply from the forequarters (= the front part of a horse). The spine must be flexible, so that the horse can bend in (= the horse in its spine, the longitudinal axis, bends sideways) to the left and to the right, and can curve upwards (= curves) so that the topline becomes long.
The horse's oldest ancestor was the size of a fox and had pads under his feet like a dog, but with hoof-like nails. His legs had 3 toes with hooves and 2 toes that did not touch the ground, without hooves.
The hoof of today's (2020) horse is the result of losing 4 toes from the original 5-toed foot. Gradually, the medium toes got stronger and bigger and lost their supporting function to gain more speed against predators. Hooves give the foot the perfect protection against the extreme conditions in which these animals live in the wild.
Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0047)
Skull Exterior. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0048)
Skull Inside. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0048)
Wild Boar - Sus Scrofa
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The wild boar is a stocky animal on four sturdy legs. The hindlimbs are shorter than the forelegs. It has a large wedge-shaped head, the nose ends in a rooting disc, typical of the family. The coat is bristly and dark.
The animal is mainly found in forested areas, but also in reed beds and swamps in a temperate climate. Wild boar has been found in Western Europe since the Middle Pleistocene, at least in the temperate and warmer periods. In the Pleistocene, the animal was larger than it is today (2021), but otherwise there have been no significant changes in physique and appearance over time.
The food is detected by smell. With its snout, the boar, relying partly on its sense of smell, digs up the earth and eats almost anything it finds.
The wild boar is the ancestor of the domestic pig. The first domestication took place in Asia Minor about 6.500 years BC. Biologically, the domestic pig and the wild boar are the same species. It is not known who the ancestor of the wild boar is. Several subspecies of the animal emerged during the Pleistocene.
From the New Stone Age, the pig can be found in Belgium and the Netherlands. The pig was and is kept for meat because the whole pig is edible. Pigs are used to find truffles, but also drugs. The hair is used for bristles, paintbrushes, brushes, brooms, and dusters. Lard (= animal fat) is used to make lipstick and toothpaste.
Fossil finds of boars are rare. In the wooded environment where the animals lived, fossilization was hardly possible. Moreover, it is difficult to date finds because Pleistocene and recent finds are found side by side.
Natural enemies of wild boars are wolf, lynx and brown bear. Humans also belong to these enemies. Fossil bones have been found that were processed by humans.
The skull has many functions, including protecting the brain and shaping the head or face and accommodating many senses, the nose and mouth. The occipital bone is one of the bones that make up the skull that has a large oval hole inside, through which the brain connects with the spinal cord.
The males' fangs are greatly enlarged and are used for fighting during rut. They are also used to turn the soil in search of food. The way of life has hardly changed since the Pleistocene.
The fact that wild boars are omnivores is clear from the teeth. There are nodules on the molars, with which nuts, roots, grasses, and herbs can be eaten. But they are also suitable for grinding carrion, worms, insects, and smaller mammals.
There have even been cases of wild boars attacking deer.
Jaw with Teeth. Found: Lathum The Netherlands (JN0049)
Molar. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0153)
Atlas Vertebra. Found: NW Overijssel, The Netherlands (JN0155)
Bone. Found: North Sea, The Netherlands (JN0154)
Woolly Rhinoceros - Coelodonta Antiquitatis
± 20.000 yrs. BC
The woolly rhinoceros is an extinct animal species. It lived from 500.000 years BC up to ± 10.000 years BC in Europe. There was a harsh climate, and the animal was well adapted to that. Climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age, and probably due to human hunting, made this rhinoceros, like the mammoth, extinct. The Sumatran rhinoceros is a close relative of this rhinoceros.
This rhinoceros had two horns, a nasal and a frontal horn. The front (nasal) could grow up to 129,5 cm. The second was a lot shorter and did not exceed 42 cm. Archaeological finds show that the animal had a thick wooly coat, like the mammoth. The rhinoceros lived on the vast, cold, and dry steppe.
In the Netherlands fossils have often been found together with those of the woolly mammoth. This shows that they co-existed in the wild. Unlike the mammoth, the rhinoceros lived solitary or in very small groups.
The molars were high-crowned with a complex enamel pattern. The high ridges of the maxillary teeth enclose a cavity. This group of rhinoceroses owes its genus name Coelodonta (= hollow-toothed).
They mainly fed on hard grasses. The molar pattern, shape of the skull and the posture, with the head pointing down, indicate that the animal has been a real grazer. The flattened nasal horn was also presumably used as a snow thrower to access food. He ground his food with his large molars.
The males were normally a bit bigger and had bigger horns. Its build and short limbs are used as an adaptation to the cold and dry climate. On top of the nose and on the forehead, rough surfaces of his two horns are visible. The skeleton has a compact build. Isolated bones are often easily distinguished from the leaf-eating rhinoceroses, which were slenderer in build and higher on the legs.
Complete skeletons of rhinoceroses have never been found in Europe. We get a good idea of the external characteristics through cave paintings. The remarkable finds in the frozen soil of Siberia also helped to reconstruct the appearance.
Research into his neck muscles, among other things, could help determine his diet. Researchers have found that many woolly rhinoceroses had neck ribs, while those of today's (2021) rhinoceroses do not. A neck rib is a rib that grows on the lower cervical vertebra. This developmental disorder is a sign of fragile health. This also likely contributed to their extinction.
All mammals have seven cervical vertebrae. Now it appears that in the last years before they became extinct, the woolly rhinoceros often had 6.
The rib on the vertebra would be a sign that something has gone wrong in the development of the embryo. This deviation is also known in other mammals and humans. It is harmless, but it is accompanied by a whole series of other defects that ensure that the person concerned cannot grow old. It is known that it can be caused by inbreeding, but also by the poor living conditions during pregnancy.
The researchers do rule out the possibility that the transition from the lower cervical vertebra to the upper vertebra was simply an evolutionary adaptation. The number of cervical vertebrae of mammals almost never changes. The rhinoceros would only have been disadvantaged if its neck became less mobile.
The absence of neck ribs in today's rhinoceros is no evidence that the rhinoceros’ population is healthy today. Their numbers are declining extremely rapidly, and the western black rhino is considered extinct.
Ancient Horse - Equus cf. Caballus
± 20.000 yrs. BC to ± 10.000 yrs. BC
Molars of horses are often found. They often stand out because of their length. A horse's molar is easy to distinguish from other pleats. An extra "foot" can be recognized in the enamel pattern.
During most of the Ice Age, the Equus spread from America to Europe and Asia. When the horse died out in America, that came to an end. They were killed by the native Americans.
The horses, now living in America (2020), were imported by the Spanish after the discovery of America. Gradually, four types of ancient horses emerged in Europe and Asia, differing in appearance according to their habitats. Only the tarpan and the przewalski horse did not die out.
In 1887 the tarpan also became extinct. The Przewalski horse was last seen alive in Mongolia in 1967.
Meat. Found: Indigkra River, Siberia, Russia (JN0525)
Mammoth - Mammuthus Primigenius
± 17.551 yrs. BC
This specimen is a fragment of muscle tissue from a woolly mammoth. It was radioactively dated to 17.551 BC. It was well preserved on a mammoth leg that was found in Russia. It is no longer edible. The expiration date has already been exceeded. A nice addition to our collection.
For thousands of years, the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus premigenius) was a staple diet of many early human groups in Europe, Asia, and later North America. Mammoths, along with other megafaunal species, disappeared about 10.000 BC. from continental areas. In recent decades, remains have been recovered from northern regions that were once covered in ice.
The woolly mammoth evolved about 400.000 years BC. in Siberia from the steppe mammoth that was widespread on that continent. It spread to Europe, and to the east to North America via the Beringian land bridge, which once connected the present (2021) continents. This event may have been the second mammoth invasion, when the steppe mammoth, 1,5 million years BC. migrated to North America and evolved into the Colombian mammoth.
The woolly mammoths mainly roamed the cold, treeless tundra grasslands, directly beneath the continental ice sheets. They shared this area with other Pleistocene grazers, which subsisted mainly on grasses and grass-like plants, along with willows, alders, and other stunted trees that were scarce on the plains. Around 10.000 years B.C. they disappeared from the continental areas. Small, isolated populations of woolly mammoths, on St. Paul Patrick in Alaska, survived until about 5600 B.C. In some places maybe even up to ± 4000 BC. They eventually became extinct due to the lack of diversity found in large populations.
Part of Antlers (Big). Found: Peace River, Florida, US (JN0041)
Deer - (Probably Odocoileus Virginianus)
± 15.000 yrs. BC
The white-tailed deer or Virginia deer (Odocoileus virginiaus) is an American deer, found in southern Canada, all of the US, except the southwest, and all of Central America to Brazil and Peru. It occurs in a wide variety of habitats, such as forests to deserts, from mountains to swamps. The animal is even found in de suburbs. The species has been introduced in New Zealand, Finland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Males grow their antlers every year. One in 10.000 females also grow antlers, although this is usually associated with freemartinism (= an infertile female mammal with masculinized behavior and non-functioning ovaries). The spikes can be quite long or very short. The length and branching is determined by nutrition, age and genetics. Antler size does not indicate overall health. Good antler-growth nutritional needs calcium and good genetics to combine. Spiked bucks are different from "button bucks" or "nubbin’ bucks"., that are male fawns and are generally about six to nine months of age during their first winter. They have skin covered nobs on their heads. They can have bony protrusions, but that is rare.
Antlers begin to grow in late spring, covered with vascularized tissue known as velvet. The typical antlers are symmetrical and the points grow straight up off the main beam. There are also atypical antlers who are asymmetrical and the points may project at any angle from the main beam. A buck’s inside spread can be from 8 to 64 cm. They shed the antlers when all females have been bred, from late December to February.
Ancient Horse - Equus cf. Caballus
± 15.000 yrs. BC
All equines are herbivors, who grab the grass with their teeth and then rip it off. The teeth adapted 23 - 5 million years BC, to eating tough, hard grasses. The crowns widened and flattened and had enamelled frames that could cut the grass. The molar has a long crown of about seven to ten cm, and a short root part. A large foot can be recognized in the irregularly pleated enamel pattern of the upper and lower jaw teeth. The length of the chewing surface is between two and four cm.
Pelvic Bone. Found: Hillsborough County, Florida, US (JN0386)
Giant Beaver - Castoroides Dilophidus
± 12.000 yrs. BC
Castoroides dilophidus is an extinct genus of huge bear-sized beavers. They lived in North America during the Pleistocene. We know of two species, the C. dilophidus in the southeastern United States. and the C. ohioensis in the rest of North America. Formerly the C. dilophidus was referred to as C. Leiseyorum.
This species became extinct between 12.800 BC and 11.500 BC. This happened together with mammoths, mastodons, and steppe bison, among others. During that period, the Clovis people settled in the region. Was it humans or climate change that caused the extinction? There is no evidence that humans hunted these animals.
The Castoroides were much larger than today's beavers (2021). They averaged 1,9 m and could grow to 2,2 m. Their weight could vary between 90 kg and 125 kg, making them the largest rodent in North America during the Pleistocene epoch. Their hind legs were much larger than modern beavers. The front legs were shorter. The tail was longer and possibly not paddle-shaped as we know it. There is no certainty about the flippers. The animal probably spent a lot of time underwater.
Beavers are known for their large incisors. The teeth would have had streaked and textured glazed surfaces. Those teeth were also much larger, up to 15 cm. Brain size was proportionally smaller, and we infer that the giant beaver may have had inferior interactions in its environment.
Holocene Epoch
(11.700 yrs. BC to nowadays)
What happened?
You don't have to go to a museum to see the Holocene Epoch. Just look around you. The Holocene is the name since the end of the last major glacial epoch or "ice age". There have been small-scale climate shifts (the "Little Ice Age"), but in general, the Holocene has been a relatively warm period in between ice ages.
The Holocene Epoch is also known as the "Age of Man". This is misleading. Humans of our own subspeces, "Homo Sapiens" had evolved and disaperared all over the world well before the Holocene. But this epoch has witnessed all of humanity's recorded history. Rise and fall of all its civilizations happened during this time. Humans have greatly influenced nature. The majority of scientists agree that human activity is responsible for 'global warming'. The habitat destruction, pollution and other actors are causing an ongoing mass extinction of plant and animal species.
The Holocene epoch has also seen the great evolution of human knowledge and technology. Things used to understand the changes we see, to predict their effects and to stop the damage they may do to our planet and to us. Since many fossils provide data on climates and environments of the past, paleontologists are contributing to our understanding of how the future changes will affect all life on Earth.
The Holocene is formed from two Ancent Greek words, 'Holos' (= 'whole') and 'Cene' (= 'New'). The concept is that this epoch is 'whole new'. It follows the Pleistocene. During the Holocene Epoch, the Dutch and Flemish landscape was largely shaped. The North Sea was created, forming the coastal strip with dunes.
Fulgurite
± 11.700 yrs. BC to ± 2020 AD
When lightning strikes dry sand, the sand around the electrical discharge is melted by the heat. A hollow glass tube called fulgurites is formed. The process is (lightning) fast, often trapping molecules from the surrounding atmosphere in the walls of the tube. They almost always arise in blowouts (= bowl-shaped depression between dunes, the bottom consists of dune soil) and not on the dune tops. In the desert, lightning usually strikes places closest to groundwater.
For most people, lightning is a flash of light that breaks out of the clouds out of nowhere. The lightning hits the ground and fades to black against the crash of thunder. However, the functioning of lightning is overly complicated. A lightning strike is like two fingers coming together. An isolated column of air, known as a leader, makes its way down from the clouds. The column meets a similar column rising from the ground. While these two columns are connected, a backlash moves from the ground to the clouds. That recoil creates the blinding light we know as lightning. The amount of current flowing through this connection is enormous and superheated air around the bolt explodes, this is what we call thunder. So, the lightning bolt always comes first, followed by the thunder.
The complex, branching structures sometimes reach a length of more than 1.219,2 cm. Scientists can study the composition of ancient climates through such natural time capsules. Extracted from fossil dunes that preserve its delicate structure, micro-spectroscopic analysis of trapped gases in the fulgurites offers a view of climates thousands of years old in regions where weather patterns have changed dramatically.
Greenlandian Age
(11.700 yrs. BC to 8.200 yrs. BC)
What happened?
The Greenlandian Age is the first subdivision of the Holocene Epoch. The boundary for this age comes from the North Greenland Ice Core Project in central Greenland.
The glaciers in the northern regions (like in Scandinavia) and mountains withdrew and a cold and dry climate prevailed in northern Europe. The warmer climate was an important transition for humans. The nomadic hunter, who moved behind the herds of the tundras could not survive in the new wooded habitat. The great herds of grazing mammals were forced to move further east towards Central Asia where the steppes persisted.
Man was faced with the chouce of whether to go after the herds to the east or do drastically change his lifestyle. This transition is the transition from the Old Stone Age to the Middle Stone Age, when people became hunter-gatherers. These also did not stayed in the same place for too long, but they no longer had to go after the herds seasonally. Settlements often were built along lakes, rivers and coasts, where fishing was an important means of obtaining food.
The plains where horses, rhinoceroses, etc. inhabited the landscapes, were replaced by cervids such as deer and elk. Other animals migrated north were like the wild boar and the now extinct aurochs. Hunters were the wolf, the brown bear, the lynx and the wild cat.
While the glaciers further withdrew, sea levels rose. Ireland was first seperated from England by the creation of the Irish Sea. The Channel between England and the mainland was also created at the end of the Greenlandian. The North Sea continued to full up, but at the end of the Greenlandian Age, the coastline was still a few tens of kilometers outside the current coastline.
Hair. Found: Yakutia, Siberia, Russia (JN0013)
Mammoth - Mammuthus Primigenius
± 10.000 yrs. BC
This strand of hair comes from the mammuthus primigenius, more popularly known as the woolly mammoth. It's the poster animal for the Ice Age, or better, the Pleistocene Period. Sometimes he's also known as the tundra mammoth, one of the mammals that inhabited the northern ecosystems.
Like all mammoths the animal is closely related to elephants. It features a number of special adaptations that helped survive in much colder latitudes of the northern hemisphere. The growth of the long shaggy coat of hair over its body is the most obvious. The longest strands of which being up to a meter long. The long hairs covered the denser growth of under hair that provided the main insulation, that covered the skin which had a thicker layer of fat underneath it, to provide even further insulations from the cold. The adaptions went further as the skin had glands that would have secreted sebum, an oily substance composed of dead fat cells into the hair. This had a number of functions to maintain the skin and hair integrity. But also helped to waterproof the long hair and increase its insulatory properties.
The disappearance of mammoths was not that sudden. It seems to have occured over at least several thousand years. Most of them died at the end of the Pleistocene and early Holocene periods.
Ancient Cattle - Bos Taurus
± 10.000 yrs. BC
Our cow come originally from the aurochs, 'Bos primigenius', which is extinct. In the 13th century the aurochs still lived in areas in Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Poland and Russia. The last aurochs in Poland died in 1627. These animals were heavily hunted and that is why they are extinct. The animal was a lot bigger than our cattle. The horns were about 80 cm long forward and slightly curved inwards. The ancient cattle lived in moist areas, such as swamp forests, near rivers and salt marshes (= overgrown fields by the sea), while the wisent lived in drier areas.
Both Neanderthals and humans hunted the animal in the Stone Age. The animal is depicted in cave drawings. But the ancient Egyptians also hunted the ox. The Romans captured the animals alive to use in the arena for fighting.
Cow breeds (Bos Taurus) that still exist today, descend from the domesticated ancient cattle, which took place ± 9000 BC. in the Middle East and Pakistan. The cow is therefore the oldest human pet. Back then it was mainly kept for religious purposes, which resulted in the use of the beef as a meat product, working animal and eventually dairy animal. The transition from primitive arable farming to a more developed arable culture in the Stone Age was made easier by the aurochs.
The molars of the ancient cattle are rare. They look a lot like those of the current cow, but are a lot bigger and more robust. The length of the chewing surface is usually between four and five centimeters.
In the spring and summer, the animal mainly ate grasses and herbs, as well as leaves and buds from trees and shrubs, but also twigs. In the fall, the food was mostly leaves and tree fruits, like acorns, and in winter from twigs, fallen leaves, branches and bark.
The animals lived in small herds. It consisted of a few young bulls and a number of cows with calves. There were also small groups with older bulls. Sometimes they also lived alone. They were about twenty years old and no longer as agile and aggressive as younger bulls. During the mating season in August and September, those older bulls were no longer able to fight properly. The gestation period was about nine months, after which the calf was born in May or June.
Calves and sick animals were vulnerable. Predators were a threat in addition to humans. In Europe the wolf was the only natural predator, outside Europe, lion and tiger were also enemies of the ancient cattle.
The cause of the variation among modern cattle is unclear. This is probably the result of crosses with bison or buffalo. Domestication of the cattle in different places or artificial selection may also have played a role. The latter seems the most likely. For centuries, selection has been made for favorable properties, such as milk yield, so that a large variation in appearance, color and size could persist. The difference between cows and bulls became smaller.
Northgrippian Age
(8.200 yrs. BC to 4.200 yrs. BC)
What happened?
After the Greenlandian Age, the Earth went through a gradual cooling period. This is now known as the Northgrippian Age. It is the middle of the three ages of the Holocene Epoch in the Quaternary Period.
The climate was warm and wet en preveiled throughout northwestern Europe. The average temperatures were higher than today (2020). But from 8.200 BC there was a 300 year strong cooling down. The climate became cooler and drier than in the preceding age. But it was still warmer than in 2020. The drier climate was conductive to the grow of heather.
River Clay
± 10.000 yrs. BC to ± 1000 AD (Probably ± 8.000 BC)
Just like the sea clay scenery and dune scenery, the river clay scenery originates from the Holocene Epoch. After the last ice age, the temperature rose and the rate of water drainage gradually increased. This influenced the river clay.
The river beds became more narrow and more twisty as result of the water drainage. The capacity of the rivers was reduced, which led to regular flooding. When a river overflows, clay particles settle on the bank, which is supplied with water from the mountains. River clay is thick, making it difficult for air, water, plant roots and burrowing organisms to penetrate. Another flood covers the clay with a new layer.
Further away from the river, the clay sunk down to the soil in basins, a lower area between rivers. The basin soils are mostly used as a grass land, they do not drain water effectively. Then there are the so-called swamps. That are river dunes created at the end of the last ice age. Most of them have been covered over with clay.
Oxide - Rose Quartz
± 7.000 yrs. BC
The beautiful pink rose quartz often has a somewhat cloudy appearance. The stone is usually found in large amorphous (= a solid that does not have a (macro) crystalline structure) chunks, which are transparent or translucent.
Raw rose quartz dates from before the Northgrippian Age. Rose quartz beads have been found dating back to 7.000 BC. Mesopotamians (Iraq in 2020) used the quartz as jewelry in polished form. It is still one of the most cherished gemstones for jewelry making.
Beware of counterfeiting! Sometimes pink glass is offered as rose quartz. Glass is betrayed by small trapped air bubbles. These are visible when you view the stone under good light and through a magnifying glass.
Rose quartz naturally gets its name from its pink color. The stone is often incorrectly referred to as 'rose quartz', but it has nothing to do with the flower rose.
Peat
± 6.000 yrs. BC to ± 3.000 yrs. BC.
Compressed plant residues, sometimes known as turf.
Dead plant material is normally broken down quickly due to the presence of oxygen and the action of bacteria. In the absence of oxygen, methane is formed. In wet and damp conditions it accumulates in the water faster than it goes, causing peat formation.
In the Netherlands and Belgium, most peat was probably formed by the moisture surplus that occurred due to the transition from coniferous forest to deciduous forest and the rise in the groundwater table under the influence of the rise in sea level.
Oxide - Red Jasper
± 5.000 yrs. BC to ± 4.000 yrs. BC.
The red variety of jasper can have various shades of red to reddish brown. The stone is sometimes even red, but often has spots or stripes.
Red jasper can have a nice drawing, thanks to the different color shades.
It is one of the few gems that you can simply find in the Netherlands, during a walk on a gravel path, on the beach or in a sand drift.
The word 'jasper' probably comes from a Semitic language in the Middle East. It means 'speckled stone'.
Green jasper was already used, between 5.000 BC and 4.000 BC, in Mehrgarth, a Neolitic site located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River Valley (in 2020: Pakastani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi). It was used to make bow drills. Jasper has been known, in the ancient world, as a favorite gem. The red jasper is popular for rings, pendants and beads.
Jasper is dated from the Precambrian. But little is known about the circumstances.
Meghalayan Age
(4.200 yrs. BC to nowadays)
What happened?
We have arrived in the last age of Earth's history. It is a distinct age. We're calling it the Meghalayan Age, the onset of which was marked by a mega-drought that crushed a number of civilisations worldwide. The Meghalayan Age is unique among the many intervals with a global event produced by a global climatic event. It is the latest age in the Holocene Epoch, for now. It's precede by the Northgrippian Age.
The name refers to the formation in Meghalaya, northeast India. The cave is on of the deepest and longest in India, and contains all chemical signs of the transision in ages.
The age began with a 200-year old drought that impacted human civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Tangtze River Valley. It's unique because the beginning coincides wit ha cultural shift caused by a global climate event. The climate was cooler and drier than in the preceding age. The sudden deterioration of the elm is not clear. Possible causes are the colder climate, a disease or the influence of humans. In the Neolithic, the elm was used as animal feed.
Carbonite - Orange Calcite
± 3.000 yrs. BC
Calcite is a type of limestone and is also known as calcite. The mineral is common and has a variegated variety of colors and shapes. Colorless, white, gray, beige, brown, orange, yellow, red, green and blue, from clear water to opaque, even, striped, spotted. Many combinations are possible.
Due to its softness, the stone is quite easy to work. As a result, the calcite is often processed into a vase, bowl, dish, figurine, sphere and the like.
The name calcite comes from Latin 'calx, calcis' ('lime'). The Roman scientist Pliny the Elder (23-79) gave this minor the name calx in his encyclopedia 'Naturalis Historia'.
The word 'spat' in the name 'calcite' comes from the German 'spalten' (= 'to split'). After all, calcite is easily fissile.
Calcite seas already exicted when primary inorganic precipitate of calcium carbonate in marine waters was low-magnesium calcite. Calcite seas altered with aragonite seas over the Phanerozoic, most prominent in the Ordovician and Jurassic.
Ancient Egyptians, ± 3.000 yrs. BC, carved many items out of calcite, relating it to their goddess Bast, whose name contributed to the item alabaster.
Oxide - Tiger's Eye
± 3.000 yrs. BC
The golden brown tiger's eye quartz is best known as tiger's eye. It is a stone in which the mineral quartz is mixed with many iron compounds. Characteristic of the stone is the cat's eye effect. The fibrous structure creates a light reflection in the form of a slit, which is reminiscent of a real cat's or tiger's eye. It owes its name to this. If you change the angle at which you look at the stone, the satiny shine will also change. Also typical is the alternation of lighter and darker stripes due to difference in concentration of iron.
The beautiful color, the drawing and the eye effect come into their own when the stone is dragged into balls, eggs or cabochons (= smooth, round or oval shape with a flat underside).
Due to its unique appearance, this stone has been known and widely used since ancient times. Egyptians believed it to be a form of the'“all-seeing eye' and used it to make actual eyes for gods’ statues.
The quartz dates from the Precambrian.
Silicate - Sodalite
± 2.600 yrs. BC to ± 1.900 yrs. BC.
Sodalite is a popular dark blue rock. Usually the stone has white calcite veins. The best quality is light blue and without calcite. Sometimes the soda ash is green, red or pink. This is because sodalite is a stone with a varying composition.
Because sodalite occurs in large masses, it is used for large decorative objects, dishes and sometimes wall coverings. Because of its beautiful dark blue color it is popular as a material for necklaces and rings.
The name sodalite is derived from its chemical composition: the English 'sodium' and the Greek 'lithos' which means 'stone'.
Between the 26th and 20th centuries BC, the Caral was inhabited. It was described by its excavators as the oldest urban centre in the Americas, but later challenged by other ancient sites. There a findings that this culture traded with sodalite.
Sodalite is believed to have formed early Archean to Neogene.
Elephant Bird - Aepyornis
± 820 yrs. AD
Popularly known as the elephant bird, Aepyornis was the largest member of an extinct family of flightless birds on the island of Madagascar. Some specimens were nearly 3 m long and weighed more than 500 kg.
The animal's eggs surpass all other known bird eggs, with a volume of almost 7l. At 160 times that of the average chicken, these are the heaviest eggs of all vertebrates, including dinosaurs. Its impressive size may evoke ideas of a huge ostrich or even the "terror bird" (Phorusrhacids) of the late Paleocene, but researchers think it was more like the much smaller kiwi. Because of their size, science suspects the animal moved slowly through the forests of Madagascar, looking around and splitting tough fruits with their heavy, pointed beaks.
The arrival of humans in Madagascar, in the beginning of the 1st century, is a theory for the disappearance of elephant birds. Fragments of eggs where some bones show knife cuts have been found at archaeological sites. This hypothesis is being questioned because such evidence is very scarce.
The nutritional value of such a large egg is, of course, hard to question. The exact period of disappearance is unknown. Concentrations of such eggs suggest that these animals were nesting in common. Due to their size, they probably had few natural predators except for a few predators
Mount Fuji Lava
± 864
Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan with 3.776 m. Actually, the modern Mount Fuji is three volcanoes in one, namely Komitake, Ko-Fuji and Shin-Fuji. In the course of the last few hundred thousand years, each volcano was formed from the remains of the previous, where the Shin-Fuji became active ± 10.000 years BC. Shin-Fuji went through several stages of development, including basalt flows, covering large areas leading to the northern, western and southwestern foothills.
This fragment is part of a massive eruption that happened in the year 864. Lava flowed from the mountain and filled part of the old Senoumi Lake, creating Sai Lake, Shoji Lake and Motosu Lake. The fertile land of the Aokigahara Jukai or “Sea of Trees” remained behind. This quiet region is also unfortunately known as the "Suicide Forrest".
This specimen comes from a local quarry just outside the Aokigahara with a spectacular view of the mountain. For five generations, this family has been producing sculptures for Buddhist and Shinto shrines around Mount Fuji. The symmetrical cone of the stratovolcano served as an inspiration for artists for centuries, and more recently for scientists studying the geometric evolution of volcanoes. The shape of the volcano is determined by hydraulic resistance to the flow of magma in a porous medium.
Rock - Dune Sand
± 1000 to ± 1600
Rounded grains and good sorting due to wind deposits.
River sand reaches the sea via the rivers. The grains are tossed back and forth by the waves and continue to sand. It mixes with small broken scraps of shells or snail shells, which will stick to your skin on the beach.
Dried fine grains are carried by the wind and stopped by plants and dunes. Each dune started with a sand that clung to a plant and grew into a sand heap.
A distinction between ripples, dunes and a draas does not exist. They are all deposits of the same materials. Dunes are greater than 7 cm tall and may have ripples. Ripples are deposits smaller than 3 cm. A draa is a very large eolian landform. It have length of several kilometers and a height of tens of hundreds of meters.
Dunes may consist of quartz, calcium carbonate, snow or other materials. The upwind side is called the stoss side, the downflow side is called the lee side. Sand bounces up the stoss, and slides down the lee side.
Mount Kīlauea Tephra
± 2018
This shape of a network of glassy lava is one of the lightest natural minerals on Earth. It formed in the powerful lava fountains that erupted of the Kilauea Mountain on the island of Hawaii in 2018. The event ended eight months later, ending the decades-long eruption that began in 1983.
Tephra describes every rock released during a violent volcanic eruption, from ashes to lava bombs and the more disembodied forms of rock in between. Molten lava stretched as finely as locks of hair, teardrop-like pools of jet-black volcanic glass, and fragile latticework that formed in an instant as powerful lava fountains exhale under tremendous pressure. The rapid change in pressure forces the gases in the lava to escape at high speed, leaving a delicate network of interconnected glass filaments.
These tephra are extremely light and delicate and have a tendency to shed small crumbs of material. No matter how carefully you handle the material. Be extremely careful when handling the preparation. It can bounce in your palm, but can easily be ground into powder. There may be crumbs in the jar, unavoidable with such a delicate material.
On the island of Hawaii, which is the youngest and largest of the Hawaiian chain, six volcanoes have coalesced. Mauna Loa is the largest by volume. The dormant Mauna Kea is the tallest. On the southeastern of Mauna Loa, lies Mount Kīlauea, the youngest and one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
Sea Urchin - Echinocardium Cordatum
± 2019
The sea potato or Echinocardium cordatum is a sea urchin that lives up to 20 cm deep in self-dug tunnels in the sand with a lot of organic material. They line the corridors with self-produced slime. It can grow to 6 cm and is covered with short gray spines. It can move. The animals often settle in colonies of up to 20 specimens per square meter. Special feet of the water vascular system hold open a long 15 cm tube to the bottom surface. As a result, oxygen-rich water flows past the animal.
Divers can rarely see them. It is quite common in the sandy bottoms of the North Sea, between France and Norway. They also live in the entire Mediterranean Sea. The wafer-thin, very fragile skeleton can often be found on the beach after a storm. The spines fall out immediately after death.