name. In another account, Cresson says that the shell was found amongst peat that was already spread across a farmers field, making it impossible to know which layer of the strata it came from, and thus determine its age. In 1890, when the entire Holly Oak assemblage was presented to the Peabody Museum, it included 275 additional artifacts. This assemblage comprised stone tools, animal bones, wood that showed evidence of having been chopped by a stone axe, a mastodon tooth, archaic projectile points, and more objects that "make little sense archaeologically". Many of the materials appear to be from the Archaic Period; however, other materials, such as the bone implements and the gorget itself, suggest an older, possible Paleoindian origin. Scientists also question the 25-year delay in bringing the find forward, for which Cresson did not have a convincing explanation. He claims that he did not understand the significance of the find at the time, although, he would undoubtedly have been aware of the artifact's significance due to the prominence of the La Madeleine carving discovered in France. Cresson also discusses a family dispute over the announcement of the discovery, as they were unwilling to risk a controversy such as had been seen with the faked mastodon pipes in the 1880s. Shell The shell that the gorget is made of is of a type mostly restricted to the Ohio Valley in the late Prehistoric period. This style of gorget is referred to as Fort Ancient, and is not common near Delaware. Here, Cresson's reputation does not lend him any aid. "The obvious inference to be drawn from this — that the shell for the engraving had been procured from an archaeological site or collection — was fortified by the discovery that Cresson had a record of theft from archaeological sites". Cresson was fired from the World's Columbian Exposition Survey in December 1891 for stealing some of the specimens from the Hopewell Site. In 1986, a 0.3 gram shell sample was submitted for radiocarbon dating. The tests gave an age of 1530 ± 110 B.P. which, in calibrated years, dates the pendant to A.D. 885. This date is well after the time when mammoths had become extinct in North America. The gorget was also claimed to have been found in a peat bog; taking into account the shell's basic pH, there is very little chance that the shell could have survived