I Found a Tooth in My Backyard

[nodogmamom]

I found a tooth while gardening the other day. Our house was built around 1870 and there may have been other buildings on this site before that.

Matt and I both think that it is too big to be a human tooth (unless someone buried Julia Roberts or Pat Benetar in our backyard, lol). I think it's strange that the tooth (root and all) wasn't attached to anything else. Are there any Vet's out there who might have an idea? Here are some pics:

front:

back:

[kater]

Aug. 21, 2008 at 7:30 AM

OMG thank you thank you thank you!  you found it!  i'll send you fedex instructions in a PM.  and i'll paypal you some cabbage.  i was in a drunken bar brawl out in baker park one night with a bunch of hippies and a drug dealer.  i'm sure you remember hearing about it.  or maybe even hearing it.  anyway.  i got my tooth knocked out and even though i stumbled around after everyone was down for the count (but me) i still couldn't find that bloody mess in the dark.  go figure.  thanks so much!  i am gonna have it surgically reattached.  you life saver, you.

[kater]

Aug. 21, 2008 at 7:36 AM

i don't know where that came from.  it kinda went all silly over here for a moment. 

seriously, my dad told me (when we excavated large teeth from our yard) that most likely an animal went down in/near a stream/lake/body of water and as it decomposed and was picked apart, it floated away/downstream.  anywhere that companies get river rock or sod or dirt that was in the direct receiving end of debris, pieces of bodies could be found there, in their products.  if you dug it straight out of the dirt, maybe could have been farmland at one point, right?  or someone could have found it before you.  i imagine a very angry and disappointed little boy in "newsie" knee breeches in a pasture clutching that tooth madly while being chased by an older brother and it getting lost in the tall grass.  but i have a hyperactive imagination, too.

[mdmom]

Aug. 21, 2008 at 9:38 AM

lol that a big one!

[MaryJane849]

Aug. 21, 2008 at 9:45 AM

It makes me think of some kind of canine tooth or farm animal as the previous poster stated.