‘Perfectly preserved' Ice Age skull extracted from mine in the Canadian Klondike
Initially, only half an of an animal skull, including the jaw, was visibly sticking out of the ground at the Hester Creek mine, according to a June 27 Facebook post from the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre.
The team from Yukon Paleontology returned the next day with tools to safely thaw out the find, still solidly frozen in the earth.
Eager to help, the miners aimed their water hoses at the ground directly above the skull, 'which significantly sped up the excavation process,' experts said.
With the miners' assistance, the team removed a complete and 'perfectly preserved' Ice Age horse skull, according to the post.
'The presence of canines tells us this horse was likely male, and because they were only partially erupted, we know he was likely a teenager when he died,' officials said.
The depth at which the skull was found suggests the horse lived about 30,000 years ago, experts said in a Facebook comment.
'Many of the fossils coming out of this area are from the last Ice Age,' experts said.
Paleontologists have identified more than 50 different species of horses that roamed across North America, Europe and Eurasia during the Ice Age.
In the Yukon, the most common was Equus lambei, or the Yukon horse — a relatively small species that stood just under 4 feet tall at the shoulders, according to experts.
Another unique species found in the region toward the end of the Ice Age was the North American stilt-legged horse — characterized by long, thin leg bones and an overall lighter build, experts said.
Experts have not yet identified the species of the Hester Creek fossil. The mine is in Canada's Yukon territory.
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