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PLYMOUTH, Ind. (AP) - Mark and Ann Aker have a little piece of the ice age in their own yard.
Bones from a prehistoric mastodon were discovered on their property last week, and archaeologists hope the rest of the beast's remains are buried there as well. Officials from the Indiana State Museum visited the Aker home Monday for a firsthand look at the bones.
Mastodons were elephantine mammals that roamed North America 10,000 to 26 million years ago. The creatures were vegetarians and lived on evergreens.
Not as tall as modern elephants, their bodies were covered with long, reddish brown hair. They had large, curved upper tusks, and their legs were thick and sturdy.
Mastodons have been found in northern Indiana before, including one in Knox in 1981.
Aker said the bones recovered on his property are in excellent condition because they lie sealed from air in blue clay and covered in peat, which gave them an oil source to keep them moist.
The excitement began Sept. 24, when the Akers began digging a fishing pond on their property. A backhoe operator had dug to a depth of about 5 feet before the backhoe's bucket hit a hard object.
When the operator looked in the bucket, he discovered a large femur bone. The bone weighs between 30 and 40 pounds, Ann Aker said. A rib and part of a spinal column also were discovered.
Mark Aker was working nearby and ran to the site when he heard the backhoe operator yell. The men knew the bones weren't human, and they were too big to come from any farm animal they had seen.
"I thought immediately that it was from a dinosaur," Mark Aker said. "I had no idea what a mastodon or a woolly mammoth were. 'Dinosaur' popped right into my mind. Too much 'Jurassic Park,' I guess."
The Akers contacted Mark Schurr, an anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame. After looking at the bones, Schurr told the Akers they most likely came from a mastodon.
