Molar of Ice Age Bison

[Bruce Williams]

Hi folks,

This is an image of a molar (not sure if upper/lower or left/right) from Bison antiquus - the immediate (extinct) ancestor of the present day American bison (or American buffalo). The tooth was found in the Suwannee River fossil beds in Florida and although B. antiquus was the most common/numerous large mammal of the period, it is quite rare to find a tooth in this fine condition.

B. antiquus had much longer horns and was up to one third larger and one ton heavier than the present day species. It was apparently hunted by Paleo-Indians as skeletons have been found with stone spear points embedded in them. It became extinct between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The tooth is solid and heavy with a beautiful dark brown, shiny patina and feels quite amazing in the hand.

Minolta A2, 12 frames ISO 100 1/3s at f/7.1 stacked using CombinZM. Main challenge was to avoid reflections from the very shiny surfaces.

Bruce

[beetleman]

Now that is a great specimen and a great specimen photo. Did you edit out the background? Boy, it looks like it just fell out of the bisons` mouth

[Bruce Williams]

Thanks Doug. Yes the original background was a bit messy so I decided to replace it using the usual CS2 masking tools. I did think about using a gradient background and even toyed with the idea of adding a baseline shadow. In the end I decided (as you recognised) to go for a pure studio/specimen shot with plain neutral background.

Bruce

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

This is beautiful! Gorgeous specimen. Is it in your collection, or a museum piece someplace?

Bison are a particular interest of mine--I live in Oklahoma which is part of the historic heartland of bison. Unfortunately, bison were wiped out here around 1890s, and there are only reintroduced herds on two nature preserves in the state (leaving out a handful of people who raise them commercially or Indian tribes that raise them for tradition and/or commercial purposes).

I have a friend who is active in the archeological community here, and he was part of a group that (under university supervision) were volunteer excavators on a bison kill site that I believe was a little newer (perhaps 2,000 years) than this tooth. He helped excavate a bison skull with mystic symbols painted on it that was apparently used to help shamans draw the bison into their trap. I believe the skull is on display at a museum here, I'm going to have to try to go get a photo of that to post here sometime.

[cactuspic]

Wonderful image Bruce. Great depth of field. Did you stack? The lighting was crisp and defined the edges well and pulled out the texture. How did you light it?

Irwin

[Bruce Williams]

Dave - Thanks for your comments and interesting info on the bison . Yes the tooth is from my own collection and is one of those pieces that is really nice to "feel" as well as to look at. It's surprisingly heavy for its size and being a river find has an all-over smoothness that is really quite amazing in the hand.

Your friend is one lucky guy to have been involved with that dig - I would love to see a photo of the skull that he helped excavate.

Irwin - Thanks for your comments. Yes it was stacked from approx 10 full size frames using CombineZM. The tooth was photographed inside a 30" light tent, illuminated externally by 3 X 50W halogen desk lights (one each side and one above - all slightly infront of subject). In this instance I underexposed by 2/3 stop (risking extra noise) but avoiding glare from shiney surfaces. I then used the history brush to selectively remove the distracting highlights created by levels adjustment in CS2.

Bruce

[cactuspic]

Thanks for the info Bruce. The lighting worked so well.

Irwin