A 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches artifact found in a Fishersville backyard has stumped the Smithsonian Institute as to what kind of fossil.
But a fossil it is, perhaps relocated from farmland elsewhere in the Valley to Taylor Endres‘ backyard where three years ago she dug it up while planting her garden.
The strongest possibility is that the artifact is a fossilized mushroom, which Endres is inclined to believe. If so, it would be one of only 11 existing in the world.
“Because it doesn’t fossilize. It takes very rare conditions,” Endres said of mushrooms.
At more than 10,000 years old, it is also possible that whatever the 61-gram fossil is, is an extinct plant that humans have so far been unaware of. Two paleontologists believe the fossil to have been a plant.
“I didn’t think that I would be able to sit in my backyard and dig for rocks,” Endres said of her 1905 home when she bought it nine years ago.
The fossil was broken when it went through her garden tiller and she has not been able to find any of the other pieces.
A recent visit to the Smithsonian in person for scientists to see the fossil up close did not yield anymore conclusions.
Endres, who was raised in Hampton Roads, has previously found several pieces of quartz, shale, porcelain and bone in her yard, but never an artifact like the fossil. A JMU geologist told her that an earthquake probably split the ground, water rushed in to the crevice and the quartz crystals were formed on her land. Markings on some of the bones resemble cutting as if by Native Americans.
Experts at Harvard are also stumped by the fossil, so Endres is next going to ask the College of William and Mary for their expertise. Endres is determined to find out the fossil’s origin.
“Somebody out there has to got to know what it is,” Endres said.
The Virginia Museum of Natural History coming to Waynesboro is interested in displaying the fossil.
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Rebecca Barnabi
