by Mari Radtke
Flood waters rampaged through the waterways of northwest Iowa in late June of this year. The receding waters left behind debris, sediment, carved new embankments and scarred landscape. It also revealed unique pieces of the past.
Donnie Burmakow brought just such a piece to the newspaper office in Paullina in early July. Donnie was wandering the banks of Mill Creek at Paullina searching for golf balls. Sticking out of one of the reshaped banks was an odd-looking … something. He pulled it til it came free from the mud bank that had imprisoned it. It was a unique, striped looking item. The stripes alternated a deep slate-black color with a softer, pewter gray or brownish color. It was curved, slightly with a pointy-ish end. The other end was broken. Overall, this item was a triangular shape.
Curious, Burmakow took the intriguing find to Sanford Museum in Cherokee. “It’s well preserved,” they told him. Being released from the lightless, moist confines of a creek bank into the relatively dry sunshine the item began to flake. Donnie quickly wrapped it in a moist paper towel and a sealed plastic bag, trying to prolong its preservation.
Experts at Sanford also identified it as a tooth of a Wooley Mammoth. Estimates on Google put the tooth’s age at anywhere from 10,000 to 300,000 years old. That’s a long time in a the side of a creek.