Published: Wednesday, 11th January, 2006 10:26
Mystery of the `mammoth` tooth
By Border Telegraph Newsroom
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A MYSTERIOUS find in Langlee has given museum chiefs in Edinburgh a jumbo surprise.
Mark Herd, a plant instructor and assessor with Scottish Borders Council, was digging a trench in Easter Langlee recently, when he came across a strange object.
Mr Herd said: “We have a site up there that we use for digging training and to assess the guys. We were putting in a trench for services, when we uncovered something.
“At first I thought it was a bit of rock that had flown up, but then I knew it was something unusual just by the shape.
“We laid it to one side, and eventually it found its way up to the museum in Edinburgh.”
Mr Herd’s find was examined by Dr Andrew Kitchener, curator of mammals and birds at the National Museums of Scotland.
Mr Herd said: “At first he suspected it was a woolly mammoth’s tooth, and he was very excited.
“But now he believes it to be an Indian elephant’s tooth, although he didn’t give us a date.”
The ancient tooth is around ten inches long, four inches wide, and weighs about two kilograms.
Mr Herd says it would be possible to carbon-date the tooth to find out exactly when it comes from, but the expense of doing so means he has to content himself with speculation for the time being.
He said: “Since we found it, we have had quite a few theories.
“One was that a circus came to Selkirk in the 1920s. We believe one of their elephants died. They didn’t have the facilities to move it, so they buried it.
“The other theory is that, because the area is sand and gravel, there were some Roman remains there. It could possibly be related to the Romans.”
It is not the first ancient artefact Mr Herd has found.
When building a stone dyke at Petershill reservoir quarry in West Lothian 18 years ago, Mr Herd came across another strange object.
The find was later identified as a fossil coral, Aulophyllum fungites, dating back to around 350 million years ago.
Mr Herd said: “It just comes up on the job. You often find things when you are digging.
“You always have an eye open for things that shouldn’t be there.”
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