William Eibner, Marcus Brandel and Wade Cordes met with Science Museum of Minnesota Fitzpatrick Chair of Paleontology Alex Hastings in the Junior Pioneer Park shelter last Saturday. The group started the day in Flandrau State Park and hiked up the Cottonwood to Schell’s Brewery for the festivities.

Eibner said the Bockfest celebration was timed with the ice-out on the Cottonwood River. It was a good time to hike the trail system. It is also a valuable place to search for fossils and artifacts. New Ulm’s location near the confluence of the Cottonwood and Minnesota Rivers deposits many items. No discoveries were made during the hike to Schell’s, but following the festival the group reviewed fossils from past hikes along the Cottonwood.

Eibner said three pieces he discovered were accepted by Hastings for further review at the Science Museum. The items included an ancient horse tooth, a fossilized piece of mammoth ivory and a third yet unidentified fossil discovered by Eibner.

Eibner found the ancient horse tooth last month on Feb. 26, which happened to be his 59th birthday. He had been exploring a sand bar near New Ulm’s water treatment plant. Eibner recently found a projectile artifact on the same sandbar.

Alex Hastings (left), a paleontologist with the Science Museum of Minneapolis and area fossil explorer William Eibner sort through a variety of items fossils in the shelter at Junior Pioneer Park.

“That gravel bar is usually submerged,” Eibner said. “It not visited that often and things have been accumulated there.”

He said the horse tooth still had a lot of dirt on it that was not washed away by the river. He thinks it had recently been deposited in the location. There are root scars on the tooth from plants, suggesting it was underground for some time.

Eibner said he had initially hoped the tooth belonged to castoroides species (giant beaver), but after submitting photos to the Science Museum it was identified as a horse tooth.

“My feeling is that it that is from an older horse species,” Eibner said, but he’s not certain of the age. There were ancient horse species in North America, but are believed to have gone extinct about 10,000 years ago. Eibner said it represented an interesting find. The Science Museum of Minnesota is still working to determine the actual age of the tooth.

The second piece turned over to the Science Museum was a fragment of mammoth tusk ivory. Eibner said he found the piece in 2023 east of the County Road 13 Bridge near Flandrau. He said at the time he did not realize it was fossilized ivory. This fossil joins the growing list of mammoth fossils discovered in the New Ulm area.

The third fossil is still being identified. It is likely a tooth fragment, but it is unclear what type of animal it originated from. Eibner is hoping it is another mammoth fragment.

Eibner first began exploring the Cottonwood River in 2018. It did not take him long to start finding unique items and his collection grew, but he also realized he should not be keeping the items to himself. He has been diligent about alerting the historical society and the Science Museum about every significant find.

“Anyone can find these things,” Eibner said. “It’s what you do with it once you find it.”

By donating these finds to the Science Museum, experts will be able to review the items and possibly add to the understanding of the region’s prehistorical past. He encourages fellow fossil explorers to not horde their finds.

“There are probably a lot of people who have in their collection significant pieces and don’t know it,” he said.