Bison bones thousands of years old unearthed at Greater Victoria construction site
A construction site in Saanich quickly turned into the site of a rare palaeontological find, after workers unearthed what experts believe to be the bones of a bison that roamed Vancouver Island thousands of years ago.
The skeletal remains – which include parts of the backbone, shoulder blades, skull, rib cage, feet and a horn – were discovered on Oct. 19 during the excavation of the site. Work in the area ceased almost immediately in order to allow a team of archaeologists and paleontologists to examine the finding.
According to Davies, the age of the bones is approximated by their position within the stratigraphic section – layers of clay, peat, volcanic ash and other sediments – of the excavation. Bison were known to have been in B.C. at least 12,000 years ago, and experts believe the large mammals were able to reach the Island via an ice-free corridor, a gap between the ice sheets that covered the top of North America, down the Canadian Rockies, during the last ice age.
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