Looking for the tooth –

NEW ULM — A mammoth molar recovered west of New Ulm in 1929 has been positioned in a paleontological assortment transferred from the Bell Museum of Natural History to the Science Museum of Minnesota. 

The discovery closes a virtually eight-decade hole within the specimen’s documented historical past after a seven-year search by unbiased researcher Marcus Brandel of New Ulm.

Local historian and preservationist August Hummel (1870-1967) discovered the specimen in an previous river channel west of New Ulm in 1929.

Hummel documented New Ulm’s pioneer historical past and the U.S.-Dakota War, compiling the 1922 historic assertion “Historic Facts Relating to Indian Outbreak of 1862.” 

He additionally helped doc the origins and limits of Brown County and have become a founding officer of the Brown County Historical Society when it was organized in 1930.

Following the invention, Hummel donated the molar to the University of Minnesota Geological Museum in Minneapolis, then a principal repository for geological and paleontological finds from across the state. 

Museum employees cataloged it as Specimen No. 3991. The molar weighs 9.5 kilos and measures 21 centimeters (8.25 inches) lengthy. 

It was unearthed 14 ft beneath the floor in sediment filling an historic riverbed.

Clinton R. Stauffer formally recorded the specimen as Entry No. 59 in his 1945 statewide paleontology survey, “Some Pleistocene Mammalian Inhabitants of Minnesota.” 

Stauffer recognized it on the time as “Parelephas jeffersoni,” typically known as “Jefferson’s mammoth,” an early scientific identify utilized to the Columbian mammoth, a big species that lived in North America throughout the Pleistocene epoch, generally often called the Ice Age.

After the 1945 publication, Specimen No. 3991 disappeared from public data and remained out of scientific view for practically eight many years as University of Minnesota buildings and collections modified.

Brandel, an unbiased researcher and former New Ulm resident, started looking for the Hummel molar in 2019. 

He research Minnesota’s scattered Ice Age megafauna finds, specializing in historic specimens that may facilitate new scientific analysis and people who might have been misplaced over time.

“I grew up outside New Ulm and never realized how many Ice Age fossils were under our feet,” Brandel mentioned. “Then in 2019 my friend William Eibner sent me an image of a partial mammoth tooth discovered on the Cottonwood River. I was immediately interested in the Ice Age history of the area and once I started looking, the Hummel tooth kept coming up in the old records, but no one seemed to know where it actually was. Being from New Ulm, I immediately wanted to track it down.”

Beginning with the 1945 Stauffer reference, Brandel tried to trace the molar’s whereabouts. 

He found that the University of Minnesota’s General Museum developed throughout the late nineteenth century and that its geological, zoological, and botanical collections had been later separated, making it tough to find out which assortment might have ended up with the specimen. 

The organic collections later moved into the unique Bell Museum’s Church Street constructing in Minneapolis, whereas materials from the Geological Museum was finally dispersed amongst college departments and different museums.

When Brandel contacted the University of Minnesota in 2019, employees mentioned they may search for the specimen however indicated that the paleontology assortment was not digitally cataloged. Locating it might require a bodily search by way of a number of collections and hundreds of specimens.

Over seven years, Brandel contacted numerous University of Minnesota departments, examined Stauffer’s unique documentation on the Gale Family Library in St. Paul, and corresponded with paleontologists and museum curators throughout the state. 

He tried to hint the previous Geological Museum’s holdings into different repositories, together with the Bell Museum and the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.

“In statewide research, you become familiar with the institutions, archives, and historical museum cataloging practices where the passage of time itself can cause important fossils, like 3991, to slip through the cracks,” Brandel mentioned. “Paper records get reindexed, collections move between departments, and old tags get lost or don’t always transfer cleanly into digital systems.”

Ultimately, e-mail correspondence with the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the eye to element by museum employees, led Brandel again to the molar. 

In April 2024, he was involved with Science Museum of Minnesota employees after studying the Bell Museum would switch its Ice Age assortment to the Science Museum of Minnesota. 

Brandel knew that every merchandise within the transferred assortment can be re-cataloged and given a brand new specimen quantity. U of M Specimen No. 3991 was documented on the ledger transferred with the gathering however had been missed by the scholars who had been inventorying and packing specimens for switch.

In June 2026, Science Museum of Minnesota collections assistant Grace DeVault, who had been corresponding with Brandel, acknowledged the 3991 designation on the ledger as she unpacked the Bell Museum materials. 

DeVault then confirmed and accomplished the catalog switch, re-designating from U of M Specimen No. 3991 to Bell/MNH (Museum of Natural History) 875, to Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) P2025.8.40.

DeVault and Dr. Alex Hastings, Fitzpatrick Chair of Paleontology on the Science Museum of Minnesota, invited Brandel to look at the molar.

The rediscovery of Hummel’s discover provides documented context to New Ulm’s geological and paleontological previous. New Ulm and at this time’s Minnesota River lie throughout the historic Glacial River Warren’s huge river basin, which reaches as much as 5 miles large in some locations. 

This expansive valley was formed by glaciers and large flows of meltwater on the finish of the final Ice Age. 

The repeated advance and retreat of ice sheets throughout the state scoured and redistributed gravel and sand deposits and created river channels and wetlands the place the stays of mammoths, mastodons, and historic bison may very well be buried and preserved. 

Later erosion typically uncovered or redeposited sturdy stays akin to bones, tusks, and mammoth enamel.

Gravel deposits throughout Brown County have periodically yielded stays of mammoths, mastodons, horses, and historic bison. 

Brandel has documented practically a dozen mammoth finds alone from the world. Mammoth molars, with thick enamel ridges tailored for grinding robust grasses, are among the many most sturdy components of the skeleton and regularly survive nicely in river sediments and gravel deposits.

Hummel’s 1929 restoration stays one of many earliest documented paleontology finds from the instant New Ulm space.

Brandel just lately printed a number of articles on New Ulm’s pure historical past as a part of his “Lost Bones” sequence on Substack, which paperwork historic fossil recoveries throughout Minnesota. Several of the specimens in these accounts are from New Ulm.

“This wasn’t just about finding a tooth,” Brandel mentioned. “It was about connecting August Hummel’s work as a local historian to the scientific record so the story would not remain lost. Museums across Minnesota hold so many objects with both scientific and historical value and many stories still waiting to be told.”

U of M Specimen No. 3991, now cataloged as SMM P2025.8.40, is housed within the Science Museum of Minnesota collections in St. Paul. Its catalog historical past has been totally documented to make sure August Hummel’s specimen stays traceable for all future analysis.

The molar rediscovery reconnects Hummel’s preservation work with the scientific document and reveals how historic museum collections can proceed to yield new data.

Marcus Brandel is an unbiased researcher and historic nonfiction author. He volunteers with the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Hill Annex Paleontology Project, and his analysis on Minnesota’s fossil document is printed at marcusbrandel.substack.com.