Ice Age Discovery: Las Vegas Workers Find Ancient Horse Remains While Digging Swimming Pool

Workers digging up a site for a swimming pool made an unexpected find with a set of bones believed to be from a horse dated back to the Ice Age - buried in the location for about 14,000 years!

The ongoing pool project belongs to Las Vegas-based homeowner Matt Perkins and his husband, who told CNN that they first found out about the Ice Age discovery on Monday morning, April 26, when the police visited their premises to investigate.

It didn't take long before the authorities that they weren't dealing with any sorts of crime, with Pekins recalling how authorities "came in, dug up the bone." When they saw that the remains were large, authorities told them, "Too big to be human. Not our concern anymore," Perkins told CNN.

Identifying the Excavated Remains

While the site was not a crime scene, the Perkins couple was still curious about what workers found. They then approached the Nevada Science Center research director, Joshua Bonde, to look at the unearthed remains.

Also in an interview with CNN, Bonde explains that calls like this aren't at all uncommon, with most of the time being nothing significant. This time, however, they confirmed it to be the fossilized remains of a prehistoric horse. Thus far, the exposed parts were its right shoulder blade and bones from its right arm, and parts of the backbone. Bonde explains that the condition of the find - with the bones mostly connected in the same way they would've been when the creature was still alive - suggests that it was buried soon after death before scavengers got to it and scattered its remains.

The Ice Age equid was found about 4 to 5 feet underground. Workers also found other parts of the horse - a jawbone, a rib, and additional pieces of the backbone in the dirt dug for the planned 6-foot swimming pool.

Studies on the remains additionally reveal that the horse most likely lived during the Ice Age somewhere from 6,000 to 14,000 years ago.

A Chance to Promote the Scientific Process

Members of the US Geological Survey will be conducting additional tests on the Ice Age to understand better when and how it died. Bonde adds that the Las Vegas discovery is a "great story" that will allow people to see better how the scientific process works.

"Now we have to do actual science to tell how old it is, maybe what species of horse it is," Bonde tells CNN. He adds that they'll also determine whether it falls in the "greater scheme" of history behind Las Vegas and the southern part of Nevada. The Nevada Science Center research director also added that the Perkins' residence is not that far from the Ice Age Fossils State Park and the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, renowned locations where ancient remains have been previously found.

During the time when the Ice Age horse lived, the area of what is now Las Vegas was once a marshland and was home to a variety of animals - mammoths, saber-toothed cats, camels, wolves, and other now-extinct mammals.

Check out more news and information on the Ice Age in Science Times.