A Las Vegas couple’s backyard turned into the site of an archeological dig when construction workers found the skeleton of a horse thought to be from the most recent Ice Age
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© Provided by National Post Pool builders found the bones about five feet deep during construction
Matthew Perkins’ plans to build a pool were put on hold last week after the workers found bones buried about five feet deep and alerted police. Perkins and his husband found out about the discovery only after the police arrived, he told CNN , but their investigation took only minutes.
“They came in, dug up the bone, saw that it was fairly large and at that point told us, ‘Too big to be human. Not our concern anymore,'” he said. Curious to learn more, Perkins decided he’d get answers from the experts.
After a few unreturned calls, Perkins was able to get ahold of palaeontologist Joshua Bonde, research director of Nevada Science Center. Bonde told CNN he gets these kinds of calls often and they usually amount to far less interesting finds. What the Perkins had stumbled into were in fact the skeletal remains of “a prehistoric horse.”
So far, the right front leg and shoulder blade, some hair, vertebrae and jaw have been unearthed, roughly four to five feet underground, per New York Times .
The remains are preserved in a way that indicates they were quickly buried, before they could be dispersed by the flow of water or hungry scavengers, according to media reports. Native horses in North America are thought to have become extinct during the Ice Age, which lasted from 2.6 million years ago until about 11,700 years ago.
Bonde estimates the bones are dated between 6,000 and 14,000 years ago. Since Las Vegas was a wetland during the Ice Age, fossils are a common find there, he told New York Times .
Researchers with the US Geological Survey are set to test the fossil to pin down a more exact date.
Perkins said kids often dream of finding a fossil and that he “didn’t really grow out of it.” He plans to pause the build while scientists can study the remains, then loan the fossil to the Nevada Science Center to display.
Matthew Perkins’ plans to build a pool were put on hold last week after the workers found bones buried about five feet deep and alerted police. Perkins and his husband found out about the discovery only after the police arrived, he told CNN , but their investigation took only minutes.
“They came in, dug up the bone, saw that it was fairly large and at that point told us, ‘Too big to be human. Not our concern anymore,'” he said. Curious to learn more, Perkins decided he’d get answers from the experts.
After a few unreturned calls, Perkins was able to get ahold of palaeontologist Joshua Bonde, research director of Nevada Science Center. Bonde told CNN he gets these kinds of calls often and they usually amount to far less interesting finds. What the Perkins had stumbled into were in fact the skeletal remains of “a prehistoric horse.”
So far, the right front leg and shoulder blade, some hair, vertebrae and jaw have been unearthed, roughly four to five feet underground, per New York Times .
The remains are preserved in a way that indicates they were quickly buried, before they could be dispersed by the flow of water or hungry scavengers, according to media reports. Native horses in North America are thought to have become extinct during the Ice Age, which lasted from 2.6 million years ago until about 11,700 years ago.
Bonde estimates the bones are dated between 6,000 and 14,000 years ago. Since Las Vegas was a wetland during the Ice Age, fossils are a common find there, he told New York Times .
Researchers with the US Geological Survey are set to test the fossil to pin down a more exact date.
Perkins said kids often dream of finding a fossil and that he “didn’t really grow out of it.” He plans to pause the build while scientists can study the remains, then loan the fossil to the Nevada Science Center to display.
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