Thursday 21 February 2013

Gravel bed sat directly on top of Mercia mudstone.

  1 - This exposure at stainsby beck shows a gravel bed sat directly on top of Mercia mudstone.
 
 
  2 - The gravel bed can be seen quite clearly sat on the red Mercia mudstone, above the gravel bed the deposits are the same as ive found above the Stainton gravel beds excavated so far in the south west area of Cleveland.

 
  3 - The Mercia mudstone outcrops in the western Bank of Stainsby beck are red and green - blue ime told this is due to a fault.
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Tuesday 19 February 2013

Megaloceros mandible

 1 -  I have  been reliably informed that this  is a  Megaloceros mandible.
 
 
 2 - The m3 molar matches a lot of the large fossil cervidae m3 molars ive viewed.
 
 
 
 3 - The muscle attachments are very pronounced i have no mandible that matches these attachments.
 
 
 4 - It is the only mandible ive seen with these muscle attachments on the underside of the jaw.
 
 
 5 - The muscle attachment pattern on the inner cheek again is like none i posses or have viewed.
 
 
 
 6 - In this image although not exact the difference in the angle of a line drawn through the nerve
 cavity the bos examples are far more severe.
 
 
 
  7 - With bos mandibles either side its not hard to see a big difference .
 
 
 
 
 8
 
 
 9
 
 
  10
 
 
 11
 
 
 
 12 - Note the depth of the cavity for the muscle attachments.
 
 
 13 - 14  Again note the angle difference with the bos example.
 
 
 15 - I don't believe this is the mandible of a Megaloceros gigantius but it is from a huge Cervid of Equal size.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Equus mandible excavated

  1 I excavated an Equus mandible at the weekend sadly the mandible bone disintegrated during the dig, leaving a full set of teeth including incisors, i also found the two equus metatarsals in the same area.
  2 The cervid metatarsal shown in images 2 and 3 and 4 was found not far away.
  3
  4
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Friday 15 February 2013

More fossil bone excavated from my main excavation.

 1
 The black line shows the bones still buried in the undisturbed deposit.
 2
The bones are shown within the yellow circle, with the gravel bed just below. 
 3
The bone location in this image is shown within the red circle, the gravel beds are outlined in yellow just below. 
  4 - The bone at first looked fragile, but after a wash and rub i found it to be heavy and hard, also it has the usual very high shine.
 
  5 The bone is part of the distal end of an as yet unknown scapula.
  6
  7
  8 - These two rib pieces were excavated close to the scapula piece, again they have the high shine.

 9 - This up to date view shows the gravel bed and the undisturbed deposits above.
 
 
 10 - This image shows the gravel bed outlined in yellow, and the red - brown plastic clay below outlined in red.
 
 
 11 - This image shows the gravel bed outlined in red, then two suspended gravel pockets outlined in yellow in the stoneless sandy deposit above, then the stoneless alluvium above the black outline.
 
 
 
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Wednesday 13 February 2013

Auroch metatarsal

  1 The Metatarsal on the left is huge.
  2  It belonged to a Bos that was at least 1.600 mm withers hight
  3 It measures 72 mm widest, 37 mm thickest, and looks to have been between 270 - 300 mm long .
  4 The bone wall is thicker than any long bone ive ever found averaging 15mm thick.


This bone is impressive in lengh and robustness, and matches some of the largest Auroch and Bison priscus metacarpals ive viewed,  yet i have noticed that there is so much disagreement between different researchers both in the past and present,  that i personally believe only carbon dating or excavations showing that there was no probability of a settled human contact,  can determine whether ancient fossil bovine bones are from totally wild free animals, and not interfered with by early humans


 

Monday 11 February 2013

Contents of sieved lake deposits from Stainsby beck Cleveland

  1 - 4  Very small Frog bones


 
 2


 
  3

 
  4 including vertebrae
 5 Preserved seeds maybe celtis ?

 
  6 Nut shells and fruit stem
   7 Preserved wood

 
 8 Snail shells the clay is packed with these things

 
  9 The stone content is very small and uniformed in type. 

 

 



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