Artemis Fine Arts presents natural history and ancient art in October 5 sale

Mississippian Human Effigy Clay Pipe, Figure Straddling Bowl, ca. 1050–1350 CE. Estimate: $700 - $1,000.

BOULDER, COLO.— Fossils from the Ice Age and Jurassic seas will share the auction block with prehistoric Native American art when Artemis Fine Arts presents its Fossils | Antiquities | Ancient & Ethno Art sale on Monday, October 5.

The wide-ranging auction brings together natural history specimens and archaeological material spanning millions of years, with particularly strong groups of mammoth fossils and objects associated with Mississippian culture.

Among the sale’s headline fossils is a sweeping Ice Age woolly mammoth fossil ivory tusk. Dating to the Pleistocene and measuring approximately 51.5 inches along its curve, the tusk is presented on a custom hardwood stand. Artemis Fine Arts has placed an estimate of $19,000 to $27,500 on the specimen.

Another substantial mammoth specimen is a curved woolly mammoth tusk section, estimated at $6,000 to $9,000. The sculptural sweep of the tusk makes it as much a dramatic display object as a record of one of the most recognizable mammals of the Pleistocene.

The sale also includes an unusual matched group of four matched group of four mammoth molars. Two upper and two lower teeth show the parallel enamel plates that enabled mammoths to grind coarse vegetation. Mounted individually on wooden stands, the group carries a $5,500 to $8,000 estimate.

One of the strongest mammalian fossils in the auction is an Merycoidodon culbertsoni oreodont skull from the White River Group of Nebraska. Preserving the cranium and articulated lower jaw, the specimen represents one of the characteristic mammals of North America's Oligocene badlands and is estimated at $16,000 to $22,500.

Traveling much further back in geological time, a large Asaphellus stubbsi trilobite carries an estimate of $3,200 to $4,800. Trilobites were marine arthropods that inhabited ancient seas hundreds of millions of years before the emergence of dinosaurs.

Another visually commanding fossil is a 31-inch Jurassic fossil ammonite, estimated at $5,000 to $7,500. Its monumental spiral form preserves the characteristic shell structure of the extinct marine cephalopods that flourished in prehistoric oceans.

The second major strand of the auction focuses on prehistoric Native American material. Among the notable works is a Mississippian shell face maskette gorget. Dating to approximately 1450–1650 CE, according to the auction house, the marine-shell pendant features a highly abstracted human face created through drilled and incised details. Artemis Fine Arts estimates the work at $900 to $1,300.

Other Native American highlights announced for the auction include a Nodena red-on-white bottle decorated with a hand motif, a published Mississippian hooded owl effigy vessel on tripod legs, a rare punctate pottery jar, a Mississippian effigy pipe modeled with a seated human figure, and a rare Anasazi-Mimbres animal effigy carved from fossil coral.

Taken together, the selection creates an unusually broad dialogue between geological and human history. The mammoth material evokes the Ice Age landscapes of North America, while the ammonite and trilobite reach much further into the planet’s biological past. The Mississippian works, meanwhile, preserve a very different kind of record: evidence of the sophisticated ceramic, shell-working and symbolic traditions developed by Indigenous societies before European contact.

Artemis Fine Arts’ Fossils | Antiquities | Ancient & Ethno Art auction will take place Monday, October 5, 2026, with live bidding beginning at 11 a.m. EDT. The sale comprises more than 360 lots and also includes Pre-Columbian, ancient Mediterranean, Asian, ethnographic and fine art material.

[View the complete Artemis Fine Arts auction]View the complete auction catalog.