Here are the photo's of the tooth found in Murphy's Pot.

It was found in the silted floor leading to the latest dig (abandoned several years ago) - the silt on the floor was from the ceiling (or washed from aroundabouts) and was undisturbed from the last visit years ago. It was around 30 feet right of the entrance.

The photos are both before and after the tooth was cleaned.

High Definition photos are available and are between 4 and 8 megs each.

The questions are;

1) What animal did it come from ?
2) What is the approx. age ?
3) Could it be from the Boar's head that Murph found and is dated 2000+ years ?



Ian

You sure its not one of Murphs?

Ian, have a go at focus stacking. i.e. take a load of shots to get front to back sharpness and then blend them together into one. Should pass an hour of the day and it beats working!

I didn't take the photo's much less understand "focus stacking"

1st of all a scale would have been a good thing to have in the photo so we could see the size but no matter. I can visulise the approx size.

Looks like it's from an omnivore so a boar is a likely candidate especially if remains have been found previously in the same cave.

Can't tell you much else though at this time.

Edit:

Scrap that, checking images of pig jaws the shape on them does not seem to match (they are typically more oval where this is rounded). Looks a bit like a human tooth (could be one of murph's) but It's hard to be sure. More research required I think.

Good point about the scale although you were present when it was found !!!!

From length to length (longest point) it is 22mm

The "molar" rectangle is 5mm by 7mm

The amount of "tooth" which appears to exist before the "root" is 10mm


Ian

Is it worth having it radiocarbon dated?

Suboffender wrote:
Yes if it's not Murfs

How do you go about doing that ?

Ian wrote: we found a jaw bone in there years ago and crazy gave it to a bloke we took caving once or twice who has something to do with archeology in chester, he came back with a prehistoric horse. but would you trust john with that tooth

timwatts wrote:
I did the picks Tim, I've wanted to have a go at focus stacking but not found any software, do you know any?

Tony, have a look through the software list here - plenty of free stuff.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking#Software

have fun!

Ian wrote:
A museum may do it for you. I know that when heather found a dinosaur vertebrae, she ha a museum date it. Unfortunately, they were also very reluctant to give it back.....

I asked Fiona Gale ....Denbigh CC archaeologist and she suggested this

Hello Frank

Good to hear from you.

I imagine it is an animal tooth of some kind. The best place to take it is most probably the Grosvenor Museum Chester. They have quite a collection of material from North wales caves and have a geologist on staff 9or at least did.....I don't think the situation has changed)

Thanks

Fiona

Coooool ... Thanks Frank

Looks like sheep’s tooth to me