Horse Or Deer Molars?

[MarkGelbart]

Someone wants me to help him ID some teeth he found near some archaic Indian artifacts in a ditch. He can't upload pictures on his phone.

[rockdummy74]

Hmmmm...I think it might be a heifer..lets see what the experts say!

[toren]

well im not sure but it doesn't look like deer to me

[RichW9090]

The left hand tooth is a horse lower cheek tooth. The right hand one might be deer, but I'd need to see an occlusal view. The horse certainly isn't associated with Archaic material; the deer, if such it is, might well be.

Rich

[deets2000]

Edited April 21, 2013 by deets2000

[deets2000]

[deets2000]

[deets2000]

Thank you Mark for so kindly posting some random guys pics on a forum. Your blog is pretty awesome as well. Thanks for the replies. The horse tooth doesn't have a stylid so it is definitely not a heifer tooth or a bison tooth for that matter. Which is what I wanted at first but whatever. The deer tooth, what I'm calling it right now anyway was found in a different spring below a site and middens etc. I've pulled a load of deer bones out of the banks along with debris, flint, etc, some antlers. These guys ate lots of deer. But that's a different site. The horse tooth site I found last year and hunt it after rains. It is a small ditch. Found the point last week, rained, then found the tooth. I found the tooth right at the site's origin. My question, although I am somewhat good with teeth, I've only had one filling ever, are you saying that you believe this is a historic tooth and doesn't fit in with the archaic time period, or a pleistocene horse tooth and is too early for the archaic time period. From what I've read horses were around up until about 8000 years ago, and I would eat a horse. Although I doubt I found the only point type from this site, I believe this is a early archaic piece. It doesn't fit exactly into a certain type. The closest I found was some examples of a Dalton Hemphill but as can be noted it isn't a Dalton. It's just a little odd weak shoulders, lightly ground, etc.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

!

[RichW9090]

If that point was up in the northeast, it would be a late archaic/early woodland (what they used to call Transitional) fishtail, like an Orient Fishtail. The premolar seems too large to be deer, and not the right shape, so I'd have to guess cow at this point - it appears to be over an inch in crown length. I think it is a lower p3.

Equus has to be either historic, that is from the last 500 yers, or it has to be Pleistocene - so Archaic doesn't seem to work. My guess is that there is a historic component erroding out there as well, and the horse and cow are essentially modern.

Edited April 21, 2013 by RichW9090

[deets2000]

Thanks Rich. Good luck hunting!