A farmer in central Yozgat province has found a fossilized jaw bone, which is thought to belong to an 8-million-year-old mammoth.
Speaking to reporters, Hasan Senyurt, director of Yozgat Museum, said they took the fossil under examination, which was given to them by the farmer.
Stating that for the first time a mammoth or elephant fossil was found, he added: “It is known that Yozgat is rich in fossil beds. However, a study on fossils just started in the last three years.”
He said Ahi Evran University’s Assistant Professor Cem Erkman carrying out studies on invertebrate fossils in the city, which he calls “a new development” for Yozgat.
“Until now, no skeleton of an ancient elephant or mammoth has been found [in Yozgat],” Senyurt said, adding that the jaw bone found by the farmer was completely lithified now.
“We will have the opportunity to have this piece of tooth examined by professors of Ankara University and Ahi Evran University,” he added.
Senyurt also expressed hope for the continuation of studies on ancient animals and said these findings had potential to attract more museum visitors.
“We will improve studies on the tooth found in Sefaatli district,” he said.
Alper Dusunceli, the farmer who found the fossil while cultivating his farm, said he handed it over to the museum director, as he thought it looked like a tooth.
In 2016, a 2.5-million-year-old mammoth tooth was also found in Eregli district of central Konya province.
In 2014, a fossil of a mammoth was declared to be 2 million years old. It was recovered in 2010 in a lignite mine in Ladik district of the Black Sea province of Samsun.
