男孩在阿米什国发现了古代猛犸象的牙齿

男孩在阿米什国发现了古代猛犸象的牙齿

A 12-year-old boy visiting Ohio’s Amish Country may be one of the youngest archaeologists in history.

一名12岁的男孩在参观俄亥俄州的阿米什国家时，可能成为历史上最年轻的考古学家之一。

Jackson Hepner was staying at The Inn at Honey Run in Millersburg, Ohio, with his family last month when he stumbled upon a rare remnant of the ice age, a woolly mammoth tooth, Fox 8 reported.

上个月，杰克逊·赫普纳和家人住进俄亥俄州米尔斯堡的“蜂蜜之路”旅馆，他偶然发现了一颗罕见的冰河时代遗迹——一颗毛茸茸的猛犸象牙齿。

“I found the tooth about ten yards upstream from the bridge we had our family pictures on,” Hepner wrote on the hotel’s blog, where a relative is hotel manager. “It was partially buried on the left side of the creek. It was completely out of the water on the creek bed.”

赫普纳的一位亲戚是酒店经理，他在酒店的博客上写道:“我发现这颗牙齿在离我们全家合影的桥上游大约十码的地方。”“它的一部分被埋在小溪的左边。它完全露出了河床上的水。”

The find was confirmed by experts Nick Kardulias from the College of Wooster’s archaeology department, Dale Gnidovec from The Ohio State University’s Orton Geological Museum and Nigel Ashland from Ashland University’s geology department. They noted the tooth, an upper third molar, had parallel ridges, which are indicative of mammoths, whose diet required specialized teeth to grind their food, such as grass and seeds.

这一发现得到了伍斯特学院考古系专家尼克·卡杜利亚斯、俄亥俄州立大学奥尔顿地质博物馆专家戴尔·格尼多维奇和阿什兰大学地质系专家奈杰尔·阿什兰的证实。他们注意到，这颗牙齿是上第三臼齿，有平行的齿脊，这表明猛犸象的饮食需要专门的牙齿来磨碎食物，比如草和种子。

Between 110,000 and 12,000 years ago, woolly mammoths inhabited the area now called Ohio (though they ultimately died out in Siberia about 4,000 years ago). According to Gnidovec, mammoths came over from Asia two million years ago, but skeletons older than 13,000 years are difficult to find due to “glacial advances” over the state.

11万至12万年前，长毛猛犸象居住在现在的俄亥俄州((尽管它们最终在大约4000年前在西伯利亚灭绝)。据Gnidovec称，猛犸象是200万年前从亚洲迁徙而来的，但由于该州的“冰川推进”，超过1.3万年前的骨骼很难找到。

Enlarge Image“During the Ice Age there were two kinds of ‘elephants’ living in Ohio — mammoths and mastodons,” Gnidovec told Newsweek. “Mastodons are much more common … [and] mammoths much more rare. That is because Ice Age Ohio had much more forested areas, which the mastodons lived in, that it did open grasslands preferred by the mammoths.”

放大图片“在冰河时期，俄亥俄州有两种‘大象’——猛犸象和乳齿象，”格尼多维奇告诉《新闻周刊》。“乳齿象更常见……(而且)猛犸象更罕见。这是因为冰河时期俄亥俄州有更多的森林地区，乳齿象生活在那里，它确实有猛犸象喜欢的开阔草原。”

The Inn seems to be thrilled with their involvement in this discovery and Ohio’s ancient history.

酒店似乎对他们参与这项发现和俄亥俄州的古代历史感到兴奋。

“What is now lush greenery, flowing waters, and hundreds of beautiful species was once an enormous glacial sheet that would slowly (and literally) shape Ohio’s future,” they wrote on their blog. “The unearthing of the Mammoth tooth shows that there are definite pieces of ancient history hidden around us, connecting us to an interesting past.”

他们在博客中写道:“现在繁茂的植被、流动的海水和数百种美丽的物种，曾经是一块巨大的冰川，将慢慢地(实际上)塑造俄亥俄州的未来。”“猛犸象牙齿的出土表明，我们周围确实隐藏着古代历史的碎片，将我们与一个有趣的过去联系在一起。”

Now that his discovery has been legitimized, Hepner is eager to get his hand on his buried treasure once again.

现在他的发现已经合法化了，赫普纳渴望再次得到他埋藏的宝藏。

“I would like to have my tooth back in my hands as soon as possible,” he wrote. “I want to show my friends.”

“我希望我的牙齿能尽快回到我的手中，”他写道。“我想让我的朋友们看看。”