PRESTON, Idaho - An Idaho man stumbled upon a rare find while digging in a gravel pit on his property.
Kasey Keller of Preston tells KIFI-TV that at first he thought he'd found a plastic pipe, then petrified wood. But when he noticed the object looked like bone, he called in the experts.
Utah State University sent someone to inspect the find and determined it was a 3 1/2-foot tusk of a Columbian mammoth.
Columbian mammoths were 12 to 15 feet tall, and the university says the species likely roamed the grasslands of Lake Bonneville.
Both Utah State University and Brigham Young University took a piece of the tusk for carbon dating. It could be anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 years old.
Kasey says he plans to dig more carefully in the future.
An 8-1/2-foot mammoth tusk in Seattle was unearthed at a South Lake Union construction site in 2014. It was donated to the Burke Museum.
