AN eight-year-old fossil finder is following in Mary Anning’s footsteps after unearthing a very unusual fossil along the Jurassic Coast.

Sebastian was taking part in one of Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre’s fossil walks on Charmouth Beach last Friday when he found a mammoth’s tooth, despite mammoths not being from that period.

However, it is thought that the tooth could be around 40,000-years-old.

Alison Ferris, deputy senior warden at Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, said: “It is an unusual find because our layers here are Jurassic – approximately 200 million-years-old – and mammoths are obviously not Jurassic. It would have washed out from possibly the river from now eroded layers from the last ice ages.

“As part of the West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code, it is an important find because it is rare for this area. We usually find Jurassic fossils here from a marine environment, whereas this fossil represents a whole different terrestrial environment in a different age.

“It helps to piece together a little more of what Dorset could have been like thousands of years ago and what kind of animals were living here.

“We can’t be sure where the tooth came from – if it has travelled down the river, how far? But other ice age fossils have been found locally, such as the Honiton Hippo, so we know these animals would have been roaming in Dorset and Devon.

“It is great that anyone can help find these fossils and Sebastian did so in a safe place, following the collecting code of conduct. You don’t have t be a professional collector to make these amazing discoveries.”

The Honiton Hippo refers to some teeth that were found during the construction of the Honiton bypass in 1965 and are believed to have belonged to a hippo in the warm period of the Ice Age, around 135,000 million-years-ago.

Sebastian decided to keep hold of his special find and a photo of the tooth was sent to the centre’s ice age fossil expert, who said that although it was difficult to tell the exact age, it was likely to be around 40,000-years-old.

Professor Danielle Schreve, Royal Holloway University of London and patron of Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, said: “There is part of a mammoth molar – I think eight enamel plates although it is hard to tell from the photo.

“It is very battered and worn so I am afraid I can’t say more as to whether it is an upper or lower tooth, or indeed which tooth it is.

“However, it is definitely woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and therefore, although it could be as old as 180,000 years – the first appearance of this species in Britain – it is much more likely to date to the period between 60,000 and 25,000-years-old, the Middle Devensian, when these animals were very common in Britain and 40,000-years-old would therefore be a reasonable estimate.

“Mammoths go extinct in Britain very late compared to other megafauna such as woolly rhinos.

“The youngest mammoths date to 12,500 years ago, right at the end of the last ice age, so potentially the specimen could also be as young as that date.”