The top trilobite is definitely Elrathia, and in Utah it is found in large numbers in the Wheeler Formation which dates to the Cambrian Period, c. 540-481.5 million years old. The Elrathia trilobite I posted earlier in this thread is from the Wheeler Formation. I am not as sure about the bottom trilobite, but it may also be Elrathia, with the free cheeks of the head missing. (Trilobites often broke up after death.) The fish is typical preservation for the Green River Formation. The most common types are Knightia and Diplomystus, I'm not sure how to tell the difference but the ID seems reasonable. For more opinions, I recommend joining The Fossil Forum at www.thefossilforum.com , it's kind of similar to CoinTalk but for fossils.
My oldest coin: Ancient Chinese square-shouldered hollow-handle spade, 600-400 BC My oldest artifacts are Native American. One is an arrowhead, and the other is a pottery shard. Both date from 10000-4000 BC. I don’t have pictures of them, though.
My oldest item could be this fossil incorporating a star fish, I think. As for artifacts, I recently acquired this small statue dating back to the second millennium BC. It represents the goddess of the Sun Arinna, pertaining to the Hittite civilization.
Fun thread! I only have one artifact, this neolithic arrowhead. This is one of my oldest coins....maybe. It seems these pre-Mauryan coins were dated over a long period or are difficult to pin down exactly when they were made. Maybe as far back as 600 BC, but maybe as recently as 300 BC?
I REALLY like the Hittitie statuette! Very nice Charles! Curious, what are the dimensions of the statuette?
Well sir.. Here are the dimensions: Length: 15.5 cm Width at chest and arms: 6.5 Width at belly:3.5 Maximum diameter of head: 3.5 Weight: 76.25 g. BTW..It's clear that the statuette has been restored or repaired but it's here.
I'm pretty sure this is an Elrathia Kingi, so the attribution should read as such: SPECIES: Elrathia Kingi CLASS: Trilobita AGE: Middle Cambrian ( circa. 509 - 497 Million BCE) LOCATION: Utah FORMATION: Wheeler Formation SIZE: ? NOTE: Specimen removed from original concretion. Your second one is also recognizable. Same time period, but a different species of Trilobite. The head may have missing pieces, but the tail area makes this one a breeze to identify too. SPECIES: Asaphiscus Wheeleri CLASS: Trilobita AGE: Middle Cambrian (circa. 509 - 497 Million BCE) LOCATION: Utah FORMATION: Wheeler Formation. SIZE: ? NOTE: Specimen partially encased in original concretion. As for size, you can measure the better than I can, that's for sure, so you should have no trouble filling that part out. Uhm, you are welcome...
One thing to keep in mind too, which most people don't realize, is that Trilobite shed their outer skeletons in the same way as other arthropods such as scorpions, crabs, etc. Which means that the majority of Trilobite fossils are not the dead animal, but rather the outer layer the animal shed so it could grow another exoskeleton. A Trilobite would have probably molted it's exoskeleton at least 6 or 7 times before reaching adulthood, in much the same way many arthropods do today.
@Jay GT4 Thanks for creating this thread it is very interesting. I have few ancient artifacts: 1. Yangshao culture pottery. This one comes with TL certificate of Oxford labs attesting the age to be 2500 BC. Yangshao culture is oldest culture of china from before the first Dynasty (Xia 2000 BC) This culture maps to legends of first emperor of china called Yellow emperor who is believed to be a chief of YangShao culture villages. 2. Canaanite pottery with TL test certificate attesting the age to 1500 BC found in Jericho and purchased from an Israeli dealer. 3. A marlik culture bronze short sword or dagger from 1200 BC My oldest coin is Lydian siglos
I just bought this, and it is one of the oldest objects known to man. It is a portion of the Muonionalusta meteorite, which impacted Earth about 1 million years ago. The octahedrite pattern you see is formed only when a Iron-nickel alloy is cooled from planetary core temperatures to ~300°C at a rate of around 1°C per 1000 years. Lead isotope dating says that this metal reached the ~300°C point about 4.5653 BILLION years ago, or about 15 million years before the Earth was even formed. This metal was from the 50-110 km radius core of a planetoid formed during the early formation of our system. For some unknown reason, this planetoid failed and broke apart, and its core spent the next 4 billion years in orbit around the sun. Using cosmic ray data analysis, we know that the metal core broke apart about 400 million years ago, with one of the fragments impacting the earth in Sweeden/Finland. It became exposed via glacier activity over the course of 4 ice ages and was discovered by a young boy in 1906. Fragments are still being found by Sweedish metal detector enthusiats, making them very common and affordable. For more info: https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2014/muonionalusta/ I’m currently looking into meteorites formed during the era when our solar system was still just a nebula created by a supernova. These are only 3 million years older than this meteorite.
My oldest of anything is this parcel of Zircons from Nigeria. Zircons contain uranium and thorium and can be dated by it to about 4 billion years ago. This parcel was large enough 1 kg to trigger the radiation detectors when entering the US. The US rejected it and sent it back to Nigeria via England again. Nigeria approved it and qualified it and it flew back through England for the third time to get to me...and I have Never been to England Jim
Both fish are diplomystus, from the Fossil Lake/Green River formation in Wyoming. I believe these are around 52 million years old. Fossil fern plate, St. Clair, Pennsylvania, 280-310 million years old. I have three of these plates, just because I really liked the contrast of them. My oldest man-made artifact would be this lead sling bullet from the first century BC.