Neanderthals in the House
Or At Least Their Relatives, and Ours, Too.
In the past few weeks, a fossil story out of Europe attracted the attention of geogeeks and others worldwide. An unidentified man visiting his parents to see their newly renovated floors noticed what looked like a mandible in the travertine tiling. (He should know as he’s a dentist.) Turns out the travertine came from quarries in Turkey, near where others have found the fossilized remains of animals such as mammoths, giraffes, and turtles, as well as early hominids. They are between 800,000 to 1.7 million years old. At present, the recently-noticed mandible has not been identified to species though it’s clearly a relative in our genus.
You don’t have to travel to Europe (plus the location is being kept secret to protect the family’s privacy) to see fossils in quarried travertine. Down at the opposite end of our coast line, in Los Angeles, the Getty Museum is covered in travertine. Like all travertine, the Getty rock formed in a hot springs, where water that had percolated through limestone reached the surface, released carbon dioxide, and became supersaturated in the mineral calcite, which then precipitated out of the water and accumulated. A well-known example of travertine is Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.
The Getty travertine came from Tivoli, Italy, about 20 miles from Rome, home to the most famous travertine building in the world, the Colosseum, which came from the same quarries. At the Getty, fossils (less than 165,000 years old) are everywhere. Primarily leaves, the fossils look like poplars, ivy, and dogwoods and are so detailed and well-preserved, one can pick out individual veins and stems and even tell if the leaf is upside down or right side up. The leaves look as if one could simply peel them off the panels. The fossils are so beautiful there’s really no need to to into the museum.
If you don’t want to go to LA, you still have many options for urban fossils in Seattle. (We have several travertine buildings but I have not found any leaves, or mandibles, despite spending a heap of time investigating them.) Here are a few examples.
German limestone - Quarried near Treuchtlingen, Germany, from 155-million-year-old marine deposits. The most common fossils—irregularly shaped and darker than the surrounding matrix—are sponges, bottom dwelling, filter feeders that formed small mounds. Ammonites are the largest fossils. They are coiled-shell animals that resemble a top down view of a cinnamon roll (without frosting, mind you). Other fossils include belemnites and forams, single celled critters that look like oatmeal flakes in this rock but which are way, way more cool than that. A similar limestone, from France, covers the floors of Westlake Mall though it lacks ammonites and has more coral.
Several locations.
1. Cherry Hill branch of Swedish Hospital – First floor in main building.
2. SeaTac Airport – A/B Food concourse columns.
3. Grand Hyatt Hotel - Floor of lobby.
Salem Limestone - 330 million years old - Quarried in Indiana and consisting of many fossilized invertebrates that lived in a warm, shallow sea when the midwest looked like the Bahamas. Most common are crinoid (a sea star relative) stems, which resemble small (less than 1/3 inch) poker chips; horn corals; and bryozoans, an animal that lived in colonies that resemble Rice Chex cereal. Most of the fossils are broken into bits but they can still be puzzled out. The limestone also has a starring role in one of the best movies ever, Breaking Away.
Locations to see them include the exterior walls of the Rainier Club, University Presbyterian Church, and the old Seattle Times building.
Texas Limestone - The 105-million-year-old Walnut or Edwards Formation limestone was deposited on a shallow marine platform. Though limited in diversity the fossils are pretty abundant. They include casts and molds of an oyster (the ribbed shell) and a gastropod, probably in the genus Turritella, which, as the name implies, is turret-like. I have found these in several buildings including a store at the NE corner of McGraw St. and Queen Anne Ave. N. and a dentist’s office on the SW corner of N 72nd St. and N Greenwood St., as well as one in Port Angeles.
Building stone fossils are one of my favorite features of the urban natural world. As I have written and said many times, nature is all around us, if we take the time to slow down and pay attention. Plus, we all know there’s far too much bad architecture out there, so if you focus on the rock you can ignore the ugliness. Happy exploring!
If you want to dive deeper into the subject of building stone in urban environments, my wife says that you could read my book, Stories in Stone, and even purchase your very own copy. Golly ned, you can’t beat that.
May 17 - 11am - I will be in Shoreline at the Shoreline - Lake Forest Park Senior Center taking about Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales. The talk is sponsored by the King County Library System.
Archaeological finds show that people were already interested in fossils in prehistoric times and brought them home. Some of these objects were transported over long distances, which indicates the existence of certain trade routes. For example, a trilobite (a marine fossil from the Paleozoic era that became extinct around 250 million years ago) found in a cave in Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne) in the Magdalenian period (around 17,000 to 14,000 years ago) and made into a piece of jewelry appears to have come from Central Europe. In more recent times, there is evidence of a real trade in certain fossils, to which therapeutic properties were attributed.
From the Middle Ages until the 18th century, the term 'unicorn fossils' was used to describe the remains of mammals from the Quaternary period, often cave bears, which were found in caves and were believed to come from the legendary unicorn, in particular its horn. These fossils were supposedly used to make effective remedies, especially against poisons, and were sold at high prices. In China, traditional pharmacopoeia regarded the bones and teeth of fossilized mammals as those of dragons and attributed extraordinary healing powers to them. These "dragon teeth" were sold ground into powder and were the subject of lively trade between the sites where the fossils were found and the pharmacists in the major cities. Western palaeontologists gained access to China's wealth of fossils for the first time by buying specimens there. Such "medicinal" fossils can still be found today in the traditional pharmacies of Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
There are more about this evolution here: https://dineros.substack.com/p/comerciantes-de-dinosaurios