{"id":36687,"date":"2025-11-18T09:20:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=36687"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:23:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:23:20","slug":"a-day-at-the-beach-hunting-mammoths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=36687","title":{"rendered":"A Day at the Beach Hunting Mammoths"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After scouring a beach in the harbor all morning in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a retired Dutch engineer, Cock van den Berg, had finally found something interesting: a polished black stone about the size of an acorn with two punctures, like finger holes in a bowling ball.<\/p>\n

He held it out in the palm of his hand to show Dick Mol, an expert on ice age fossils.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d he asked. \u201cIs it a mammoth tooth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mol examined it for about 30 seconds and decided it was not. It was a molar from a prehistoric rhinoceros, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s from a forest rhino,\u201d he added, dating to \u201cthe time that hippos and straight-tusked elephants were living here,\u201d about 126,000 to 116,000 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Van den Berg is what Dutch scientists like to call a \u201ccitizen paleontologist,\u201d one of a cadre of enthusiastic scavengers who come to this 8-square-mile stretch of white sand beach dotted with wind turbines, to hunt for ice age fossils.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Southern mammoth bone fragments at the Historyland museum in Hellevoetsluis, the Netherlands. Fossil discoveries in Rotterdam kicked off in the 1950s when fishers dredged the sea floor.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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After scouring a beach in the harbor all morning in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a retired Dutch engineer, Cock van den Berg, had finally found something interesting: a polished black stone about the size of an acorn with two punctures, like finger holes in a bowling ball.He held it out in the palm of his hand to show Dick Mol, an expert on ice age fossils.\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d he asked. \u201cIs it a mammoth tooth?\u201dMol examined it for about 30 seconds and decided it was not. It was a molar from a prehistoric rhinoceros, he said.\u201cIt\u2019s from a forest rhino,\u201d he added, dating to \u201cthe time that hippos and straight-tusked elephants were living here,\u201d about 126,000 to 116,000 years ago.Van den Berg is what Dutch scientists like to call a \u201ccitizen paleontologist,\u201d one of a cadre of enthusiastic scavengers who come to this 8-square-mile stretch of white sand beach dotted with wind turbines, to hunt for ice age fossils.Southern mammoth bone fragments at the Historyland museum in Hellevoetsluis, the Netherlands. Fossil discoveries in Rotterdam kicked off in the 1950s when fishers dredged the sea floor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36689,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36690,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36687\/revisions\/36690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}