The American Museum of Natural History has already thrown water as chilly because the East River on the story.
NEW YORK — Ask individuals what you may discover buried within the muck on the backside of New York City’s East River they usually’d probably say “mob boss” earlier than pondering of mammoth bones.
But a number of teams of treasure hunters have taken to the waterway in latest weeks after listening to a visitor on comic Joe Rogan’s podcast claim a boxcar’s value of doubtless precious prehistoric mammoth bones was dumped within the river within the Nineteen Forties.
Despite a scarcity of proof to again up the story, treasure seekers utilizing boats, diving apparatuses and expertise like remote-operated cameras have gone looking out, in hopes the murky waters are hiding woolly mammoth tusks.
“I believe the probabilities are simply nearly as good because the lottery. And individuals purchase these tickets on daily basis,” mentioned Don Gann, 35, of North Arlington, New Jersey, a business diver who’s been out on the water since early final week together with his brother and two staff.
It all began when John Reeves, an Alaskan gold miner with a ardour for fossils, got here onto “The Joe Rogan Experience” for an episode that aired Dec. 30 to speak about his land, the place he has personally uncovered quite a few age-old bones and tusks. In the primary half of the twentieth century, underneath earlier possession, digging for gold unearthed a trove of prehistoric mammal stays.
Some of that materials was delivered to New York City many years in the past to be handed over to the American Museum of Natural History. Reeves cited a draft of a report put collectively by three males, together with one who labored on the museum, that included a reference to some fossils and bones deemed unsuitable for the museum being dumped into the river.
“I’m going to start out a bone rush,” Reeves instructed Rogan, earlier than studying from the draft and giving out a location: East River Drive, which is now often known as the FDR Drive, at round sixty fifth Street.
“We’ll see if anyone on the market’s bought a way of journey,” he said, later adding, “Let me tell you something about mammoth bones, mammoth tusks – they’re extremely valuable.”
After the episode aired, the American Museum of Natural History threw water as chilly because the East River on the story.
“We would not have any report of the disposal of those fossils within the East River, nor have we been capable of finding any report of this report within the museum’s archives or different scientific sources,” it mentioned in an announcement.
When reached by The Associated Press through phone, Reeves refused to speak and as an alternative instructed a reporter to learn the pages of the draft he had posted on social media earlier than hanging up. He didn’t reply different calls and emails.
The pages posted on social media establish three males because the authors: Richard Osborne, an anthropologist; Robert Evander, who previously labored within the American Museum of Natural History’s paleontology division; and Robert Sattler, an archeologist with a consortium of Alaska Native tribes.
Reached by The Associated Press, Sattler mentioned the story in regards to the dumped bones got here from Osborne, who died in 2005.
The doc cited by Reeves was actual, he mentioned, and written within the mid-Nineties. But it wasn’t one thing supposed for an instructional journal. It was a place to begin for one thing — possibly a e book — based mostly on Osborne’s information of a interval in Alaska when mammoth stays have been being found in loads. Osborne’s father labored at an organization concerned within the digging.
Sattler mentioned Osborne hung out across the operation as a younger man and doubtless heard the story about surplus bones being dumped within the river secondhand. Sattler mentioned he didn’t have any specifics past Osborne’s recollections.
“He would have had some information from any individual telling him that they dumped some extra materials within the East River,” he mentioned.
Mammoth stays found in Alaska did wind up on the American Museum of Natural History, together with some still on display today.
The part of the Manhattan shoreline the place Reeves claimed the bones have been dumped underwent main adjustments within the Nineteen Thirties and Nineteen Forties, because the East River Drive, later renamed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was constructed on fill and pilings. The freeway opened absolutely to drivers in 1942, elevating questions on how somebody would have dumped an enormous trove of bones with out disrupting site visitors.
Gann mentioned he is seen about two dozen different units of fossil hunters within the time he is spent looking for mammoth stays out on the East River.
Visibility within the East River is extraordinarily poor, he mentioned. On a great day, you possibly can see possibly a foot in entrance of you. The present on the backside is powerful.
But the avid diver, who appeared in Discovery’s “Sewer Divers,” has a factor for seeking out uncommon finds — though mammoth bones are admittedly on a special scale than discovering a Paul Revere spoon at an property sale.
“I’ve hunted for weird artifacts my entire life, so this one, it just kind of fits into my repertoire,” Gann mentioned.
He and his crew have not discovered something, which he admits is disappointing, however it has spurred him to do a few of his personal digging into historical past. He’s switched his sights to a location off of the southern a part of Brooklyn, saying it will have been a extra probably website for cargo to be dumped than the East River off Manhattan.
“If I discover nothing, then I discover nothing. I gave it an trustworthy shot,” Gann mentioned.
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