FIELDON -- An unusual find by a village woman is the talk of the town, drawing curious residents to Snyder’s Headquarters tavern who’d like to take a guess at what it possibly could be.
A Fieldon woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she found what looks to be some kind of animal skull while she was out hunting for morel mushrooms early this spring. She said she was in a hollow in rural Jersey County about six weeks ago when she came across what looked like part of a bone.
"It was buried under leaves and some brush, and I picked it up and didn’t know what it was," she said.
The object obviously was some kind of bone, possibly a skull. The bone is about the size of a basketball, but it is anything but round. It has a flat surface on one end and several openings that look as if they could be nose holes or eye sockets. Small protrusions on what speculators believe is the top of the bone look like parts of horns that could have stuck out of the animal’s head, and there is a round opening in the back, possibly where the animal’s spinal cord began.
The woman said she has had many suggestions from people as to what the bone could be, but no one has been able to positively identify it.
"One person told me it was a turtle; other people have said it’s a small deer or buffalo or a cow," she said. "But I talked to somebody (Tuesday) who said it looks like it could be from some kind of elephant that was around 10 to 12 feet long."
The woman even took the bone to the Center for American Archeology in Kampsville with the hope that someone there could identify it, but she didn’t have any luck.
"I’ve even taken it to taxidermists to see if they knew what it is, but they didn’t have any clue, either. They all said it’s not like anything they’ve ever seen before," she said. "I’ve gotten two whole counties (Jersey and Calhoun) all riled up about it."
The woman has been taking the bone to Snyder’s Headquarters tavern, letting anyone who is interested take a look at it and offer a guess as to what it could be. Meantime, she has her own idea as to its identity.
"I think it’s the Piasa Bird’s skull," she said with a laugh.
John Sullivan, who was at Snyder’s Headquarters discussing the bone with a few other patrons Wednesday, said he has never seen anything like it in his 81 years.
"It’s obviously something very old. It looks like my mother-in-law," he said, laughing.
Two other men also said they had no idea what kind of animal the bone could be from. The men, who asked not to be identified, said they are loggers and spend a great deal of time out in the woods. They’ve seen their fair share of animal skeletons, from rabbits and squirrels to deer and coyotes.
"That doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before," one of the men said.
The woman who found the bone said she hopes someone will see it and be able to tell her what it is, whether it’s from a cow or some kind of prehistoric creature.
"I just want to find a name for it," she said. "If nothing else, it’s a good conversation piece."
