11-Year-Old Boy Finds 1.8-Million-Year-Old Elephant Molar on UK Beach

1 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jun 28

Charlie Orchard-Lisle, 11, found a 4-inch-wide fossil tooth near the shoreline at East Lane beach in Bawdsey, Suffolk, during a family walk in May.
Experts later identified it as an upper left molar from Anancus arvernensis, an extinct relative of modern elephants whose enamel was preserved and mineralized over about 1.8 million years.
Eleanor Orchard-Lisle said the family spotted the unusual rock-like object by the waves and quickly realized it felt different from ordinary beach stones.
The family believes erosion may have released the tooth from a nearby Red Crag cliff, a fossil-rich formation along England's eastern coast, before it washed onto the beach.
The find adds to a recent run of child-led discoveries, including a Viking-age sword found by Norwegian first-graders and a 1,700-year-old Roman statuette fragment found by an 8-year-old in Israel.