Mammoth Tusk (c) National Museum of Scotland

Part of a mammoth tusk was uncovered by navvies digging the canal in the section through the Clifton Hall Estate near Ratho. The entire piece was 1 metre long and weighed 12 kg. The navvies sold it to a carver in Edinburgh for £2 without the permission of the landowner, Sir Alexander Maitland Gibson. When it was recovered it had already been cut into three pieces.

Between 1966 and 1998 the piece of tusk disappeared again but was finally donated to the National Museum of Scotland. Through carbon dating the tusk, the museum found the mammoth must have died 29 000 years ago!