When I was a kid, our elementary school librarian in Tupelo, a lady named Mrs. Cook, turned us on to hunting for arrowheads and pieces of pottery found near our school. The Tupelo area was once a major Chickasaw village and fort. In fact, the area was the site of a great Chickasaw victory over the French and their Choctaw allies in 1736.

Archeologists found the remains of the town, its rectangular fort and stockade. But there were smaller artifacts to be found along Town Creek, which was only a mile or so from  our school on the east side of town. Every Saturday, Mrs. Cook would put on her rubber boots and floppy hat and hunt along the creek banks with any kids who showed up.

We almost always found something, mainly arrowheads and shards of pottery, none of which had any historical or monetary value, but were a kid’s treasures. It’s hard to describe the excitement of finding something that may have been a thousand years old, which to a kid seems like the dawn of time.

Certainly, we would never have imagined the possibility of finding animal fossils from 80 million years ago.

There was a time when not much thought was given to what the world was like prior to man’s arrival. We were aware of dinosaur remains, mostly found in Europe, Africa and Asia, but no one ever imagined that our little part of the world had much of a prehistoric story to tell.

That’s changing rapidly. For years, the Luxapalila Creek has been a prime hunting ground for fossils. Eighty-million years ago, the area along the creek and in East Columbus was an estuary teeming with prehistoric life. And we’re not just talking about plants. We’re talking about actual dinosaurs, two of which had never previously been found.

It’s interesting that little creeks still hold secrets. James Starnes and Jonathan Leard of the geology division for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, came across another exciting find along a creek bank in Oktibbeha County., a vertebrae from a giant marine lizard from the late Cretaceous period, known as a Mosasaur. At a time when Mississippi was covered by a shallow ocean, the Mosasaur was to its watery environment what Tyrannosarus Rex was to land — the ultimate predators. Mosasaurs had a snake-like body with limbs modified into paddles and a long, slightly downcurved tail region. They hunted with large jaws and cone-shaped teeth.

If you’ve seen the film Jurassic World, you’ve seen a Mosasaurus. In the film,  a memorable scene shows a Mosasaur in a Sea World-type show where tourists watched the Mosasaur leap out of the water to eat a great white shark suspended high about the tank in one big bite. The film took some liberties with the size and eating abilities of the Mosasaur, but they were magnificent eating machines.

Meaning no disrespect to the Chickasaw relics of my youth, but finding fossils of so many long-extinct species, especially those that seemed to be made up of spare parts of several animals as if Uncle Bunky was inventing them, is a pretty big deal.

The city of Columbus hopes to secure funding for a Fossil Park on part of the Lux that adjoins Propst Park. Ideally, it would be a public-private partnership, one that kids of all ages can claim some pride of ownership.

Beyond the discoveries, fossil hunting gets you outdoors. It’s good exercise for the body and soul. It’s something families can enjoy together and is an excellent hands-on learning experience for schoolchildren.

My only regret is that Mrs. Cook isn’t around to lend her contagious enthusiasm for exploring natural history all around us.

Sign me up.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Our View: Mississippi schools must adapt to fewer students

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago

• 

  Our View: Together, the Golden Triangle is a stronger sell; now our heads turn to the LINK

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 16 hours ago