In the summertime of 2016, Jackson-native paleontologist George Phillips and Michael Estes, a discipline volunteer with the Mississippi Museum of Pure Science, picked their manner alongside a forested creek mattress within the Hell Creek Wildlife Administration Space simply north of New Albany, Miss. Whereas components of the creek had dried utterly within the solar, others sections nonetheless had ankle-deep water interspersed with bigger swimming pools at the very least just a few ft deep by way of which the 2 males rigorously waded.
Phillips and Estes had come to Hell Creek to pattern mineral deposits within the space recognized to yield crab fossils as a part of a analysis paper on the species variety of the area’s fossils. The regular movement of water typically exposes fossils within the rocks of creek beds, which Phillips was scanning for as he shuffled alongside.
All of a sudden, Phillips’ eyes fell on a wierd form within the water in contrast to something he had seen on quite a few expeditions in Mississippi. When he plucked the tiny object out of the shallow water and took a better look, it was readily obvious that his discover was a fossilized tooth, however the paleontologist was puzzled as to simply what kind of creature as soon as bore it.
Phillips took out his cellphone and photographed the tooth, sending the picture to a colleague named Lynn Harrell together with a request for assist in figuring out it. Harrell suspected the tooth was from a ceratopsian dinosaur, a bunch that features triceratops and comparable horned dinosaurs. Checking the tooth he’d discovered in opposition to pictures from licensed on-line sources, Phillips was capable of affirm that his discovery matched Harrell’s suggestion.
“Dinosaur fossils in that space are already very uncommon, and that is in truth the one one we’ve ever came upon there,” Phillips advised the Mississippi Free Press. “I had by no means even thought of that it may very well be from a ceratopsian as a result of it was a discover so incongruous with what we all know of japanese North America’s fossil document. Horned dinosaur fossils had been beforehand utterly unknown east of the Nice Plains.”
After positively figuring out his discover, Phillips collaborated with a horned dinosaur professional named Dr. Andy Farke to publish a paper on the invention the next 12 months. By June 2018, the tooth went on show on the Mississippi Museum of Pure Science. Whereas the unique stays there, the museum additionally had a reproduction made to placed on show in an area museum simply 18 miles away from the place Phillips made his discovery: the Union County Heritage Museum (114 Cleveland St., New Albany).
‘One thing for Everybody Right here’
Initially established inside a former church sanctuary in 1991, the Union County Heritage Museum now occupies two metropolis blocks in New Albany and contains six galleries, a library and The Inn, which is the historic birthplace of Mississippi native creator William Faulkner.
Along with the rock and fossil exhibit, a number of the museum’s different everlasting displays cowl the Ingomar Mounds in Union County, historic furnishings, classic railroad vehicles, the historical past of varied sports activities in Union County, rural docs of the early 1900s and different subjects.
“We’re truly situated within the middle of the Mississippi Hills Nationwide Heritage Space, which implies a lot of our displays transcend simply the traces of Union County,” museum director Jill Smith mentioned. “Which means there’s one thing for everybody right here, whether or not it’s our displays or only a good place to take a seat out on the deck or have a picnic and watch the trains go by.”
Apart from the duplicate of George Phillips’ historic ceratopsian tooth, the rock and fossil exhibit on the Union County Heritage Museum contains objects such because the leg bone of a duck-billed dinosaur, crabs and ammonites, the skulls of a saber-toothed cat and a dire wolf, tusks and tooth from mastodons and wooly mammoths, amongst different artifacts.
A lot of Phillips’ quite a few discoveries are on show on the Union County museum as a part of a partnership with the Mississippi Museum of Pure Science, which has additionally hosted an annual touring fossil roadshow at UCHM since 2008. Throughout the fossil roadshow, UCHM invitations guests to usher in their very own fossils for specialists to determine. The museum additionally companions with the North Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society to host a gem present on the second Saturday of June yearly.
“We take care of inquiries from all throughout the state regarding fossils individuals have discovered spanning 350 million years,” Phillips mentioned. “The youngest ones, from across the Ice Age, are present in river valleys within the Golden Triangle and Natchez, whereas the oldest are typically discovered within the northeastern a part of the state.”
“The oldest and the youngest are sometimes discovered alongside each other, partly due to Ice Age fossils being washed into Mississippi from additional north,” he continued. “How does that work, you may surprise? You’ll simply have to come back to one among our exhibits to seek out out.”
One other of the museum’s main displays considerations the Ingomar Mounds, a sequence of 13 earthen buildings that historical Native American tribes constructed roughly 2,200 years in the past. Positioned roughly six miles south of New Albany, the Ingomar Mounds sit on 70 acres of what’s at present thought of a part of the Chickasaw homeland, although it’s unknown what tribe initially constructed the mounds.
The Smithsonian Establishment despatched groups of explorers to review the mounds and to retrieve artifacts within the Eighties, 17 of that are at present on show in UCHM, together with flint instruments, pottery, Spanish silver and different objects.
UCHM’s exhibit additionally covers features of Chickasaw historical past in Union County, together with Ishtehototah, the final king of the Chickasaw and signer of the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek in 1832. The treaty ceded roughly six million acres of Chickasaw land to the USA federal authorities, after which Ishtehototah led the Chickasaw to Oklahoma.
The museum additionally hosts an annual Ingomar Mound Day in October, throughout which guests can carry objects they’ve discovered which can be artifacts to have visiting archeologists determine them. UCHM additionally hosts a contest by which guests can attempt utilizing an atlatl, a precursor to the fashionable searching bow.
Sports activities is the centerpiece of one other of UCHM’s everlasting displays, one revolving across the historical past of varied sports activities in Union County from skilled basketball, baseball and soccer to big-game searching and canine coaching. Along with highlighting particular person athletes, the museum incorporates a digital archive of greater than 5,000 Mississippians telling their private sports activities tales, which guests can seek for people or for faculties and groups.
The museum additionally incorporates the William Faulkner Library, consisting of greater than 800 volumes of Faulkner’s personal books or literary criticism of his work. The library boasts a botanical backyard as nicely, devoted to crops Faulkner typically wrote about in his works.
Every November, UCHM holds the Mississippi Hills Folklife and Craft Competition, a celebration of heritage crafts resembling quilting, broom making and butter making. At different occasions, the museum hosts theater productions, pottery studios, weddings and different occasions.
The museum is open Tuesday by way of Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to three p.m. For extra data, name 662-538-0014 or go to ucheritagemuseum.com.
