Ask individuals what you would possibly discover buried within the muck on the backside of New York Metropolis’s East River they usually’d doubtless say “mob boss” earlier than considering of mammoth bones. However a number of teams of treasure hunters have taken to the waterway in current weeks after listening to a visitor on comic Joe Rogan’s podcast declare a boxcar’s value of probably worthwhile prehistoric mammoth bones was dumped within the river within the Forties.
Regardless of a scarcity of proof to again up the story, treasure seekers utilizing boats, diving apparatuses and know-how like remote-operated cameras have gone looking, in hopes the murky waters are hiding woolly mammoth tusks.
“I feel the probabilities are simply nearly as good because the lottery. And folks purchase these tickets on daily basis,” mentioned Don Gann, 35, of North Arlington, New Jersey, a industrial diver who’s been out on the water since early final week along with his brother and two staff.
It began when John Reeves, an Alaskan gold miner with a ardour for fossils, got here onto “The Joe Rogan Expertise” 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. Within the first half of the twentieth century, below earlier possession, digging for gold unearthed a trove of prehistoric mammal stays.
A few of that materials was delivered to New York Metropolis a long time in the past to be handed over to the American Museum of Pure Historical past. 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 generally known as the FDR Drive, at round sixty fifth Road. “We’ll see if anyone on the market’s obtained a way of journey,” he mentioned, later including, “Let me inform you one thing about mammoth bones, mammoth tusks – they’re extraordinarily worthwhile.”
After the episode aired, the American Museum of Pure Historical past threw water as chilly because the East River on the story. “We wouldn’t have any file of the disposal of those fossils within the East River, nor have we been capable of finding any file of this report within the museum’s archives or different scientific sources,” it mentioned in an announcement.
When reached by The Related Press by way of phone, Reeves refused to speak and as a substitute 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 determine three males because the authors: Richard Osborne, an anthropologist; Robert Evander, who previously labored within the American Museum of Pure Historical past’s paleontology division; and Robert Sattler, an archeologist with a consortium of Alaska Native tribes.
Reached by The Related 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-Nineteen Nineties. However it wasn’t one thing supposed for an educational journal. It was a place to begin for one thing — possibly a guide — based mostly on Osborne’s data of a interval in Alaska when mammoth stays had been being found in lots. 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 data 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 Pure Historical past, together with some nonetheless on show right this moment.
The part of the Manhattan shoreline the place Reeves claimed the bones had been dumped underwent main adjustments within the Thirties and Forties, because the East River Drive, later renamed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was constructed on fill and pilings. The freeway opened totally 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’s seen about two dozen different units of fossil hunters within the time he’s spent looking for mammoth stays out on the East River.
Visibility within the East River is extraordinarily poor, he mentioned. On a very good day, you’ll be able to see possibly a foot in entrance of you. The present on the backside is powerful.
However 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 bizarre artifacts my complete life, so this one, it simply type of suits into my repertoire,” Gann mentioned.
He and his crew haven’t 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 doubtless web site 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.
