The object was reportedly found by Hilborne T. Cresson in 1864, but was not brought to the attention of the scientific community until December 1889 or the public until February 1890.
[2] Once the Holly Oak gorget had been introduced to the scientific community and the public at large, the shell was put aside and rarely mentioned in the archaeological literature of the time.
It was displayed at the Peabody Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the International Expositions of Madrid and Chicago before fading from the public eye, only to be resurrected in the 1970s when its authenticity was once again subject to debate.
[3] In his original report, Cresson states that the pendant was discovered in a hole being dug in the peat along the Delaware River and across from the Holly Oak station of the railroad, from which the site gets its name.
[4] 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.
[5] 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.
[6][7] Several people who have viewed the Holly Oak gorget have commented on how similar the drawing is to the La Madeleine tusk.
[5] At the time of the Holly Oak pendant, as there were so few ways known of drawing a mammoth, the marked similarities between the two were not thought of as being unduly suspicious.