Shopper stunned after finding out origin of strange item purchased at thrift store: 'Pretty rare'

You never really know what kind of treasures you're going to find when you walk down the aisles of your local thrift store. 

From trendy clothing at a steep discount to one-of-a-kind antique furniture that just might be the missing piece to your home's decor, there's a little bit of everything.    

For one Texas woman, that even means ancient relics that are thousands of years old. 

As Chron reported, Wendy Wight wasn't expecting to come across a mammoth tooth while browsing around the Cottage Shop, a local thrift shop in Houston. 

But that's exactly what she found while looking through the store's rock collection sitting inconspicuously on a shelf in the back. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wendy Wight (@wendywight)

At just $5 each, the rocks were easy to miss. "I almost passed them by," Wight told Chron. "Then I thought, 'I can spend $5 each.'" However, after purchasing several of the rocks, Wight had a little trouble identifying one of them. 

After reaching out for help, Wight eventually learned that the rock actually once belonged to a mammoth. Andre Lujan, a paleontologist from Dallas, explained that it was likely a Columbian mammoth since woolly mammoths never roamed across Texas. 

Some Columbian mammoths once called Texas home during the Ice Age. The Lone Star State contains significant fossil evidence, including the first and only known nursery herd in the U.S. at the Waco Mammoth National Monument. The mammoths likely thrived in the grasslands before becoming extinct around 10,000 years ago.

As they roamed their habitat, the animals had a propensity for losing their teeth. "Mammoths have six sets of teeth during their lifetime that progressively erupt, wear, and then fall out with the next tooth growing in and replacing it like a conveyor belt," Lujan said. 

Devin Pettigrew, an archaeologist with the Center for Big Bend Studies, noted that despite having a good idea which creature the tooth belonged to, "it's hard to say much about how old it is." 

What's your primary motivation in shopping at thrift stores? Cheaper clothes 🤑 Trendier items 😎 Reduced environmental impact 🌎 I don't thrift 🚫 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

Since Columbian mammoth fossils have been found throughout North and Central America, the exact origins of Wight's thrift store find are still a mystery. 

"But I think finding a great example of a fossilized mammoth tooth is pretty rare," Pettigrew added. 

While scoring an ancient mammoth tooth is extremely rare, other thrift store finds can still do wonders for the environment by keeping items out of landfills. 

Not only does this give unwanted goods a second life, but it also reduces the need to produce new products, which can ultimately conserve resources and cut down on overall waste.  

Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.