<p>LAS VEGAS — A couple in Las Vegas said they will have to wait to continue building their pool after construction crews unearthed a set of bones dating back to Earth’s most recent ice age. </p>
<p>Matt Perkins and his husband, who recently moved from Washington state to a newly built home in Nevada, said police and crime scene investigators showed up Monday at their home to analyze the bones. </p>
<p>“The pool guy said he was going to come to check out the pool,” Perkins <a href="https://www.ktnv.com/news/backyard-bones-las-vegas-pool-installation-reveals-14-000-year-old-surprise">told </a> KTNV-TV. “We assume that was normal, we wake up he’s out front with the police.”</p>
<p>The pool builders discovered the bones about five feet (1.5 meters) below ground. After an investigation, police said the bones did not belong to a human and raised no law enforcement concerns. </p>
<p>Nevada Science Center Research Director Joshua Bonde said the bones are between 6,000 and 14,000 years old and are those of a horse or similar large mammal.</p>
<p>Bonde said the area where they were found was fed by natural springs and served as a watering spot for wildlife in the arid Mohave Desert about 14,000 years ago. </p>
<p>The backyard discovery came near Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, where rare fossils such as mammoths have been unearthed before.</p>
<p>If people are digging in their backyard, it shouldn’t be a surprise when they hit something,” Bonde said. He also noted that the U.S. has laws that discovered fossils belong to property owners. </p>
<p>Perkins is now deciding how best to preserve the fossil.</p>
