Pieces of a mammoth's tooth and a bison thigh bone were found in a creek at the airport, WFAA reported.
You are looking at fossils discovered at DFW this month that are believed to be more than 11,000 years old. The bison thigh bone and mammoth tooth are the first remains dating back to the Ice Age ever recovered from the airport. pic.twitter.com/x5x48GfR7c
— DFW Airport (@DFWAirport) November 13, 2018
"Two employees of the airport's Environmental Affairs Department found the tooth while conducting routine field tests for potential impacts to the environment," an airport spokesman told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in an email.
The fossils were found on Nov. 2 and 3 by Brandon Burks and Roger Duval, WFAA reported.
Burks told the television station that he originally thought the fossils were rocks.
"(They were) completely exposed, you know, it wasn't buried at all, which was interesting," Burks said.
Duval, an amateur fossil hunter, had a stronger reaction.
"He kind of put them together and was like, 'You know what, this could be a mammoth tooth,'" Burks told WFAA. "We kind of freaked out."
The fossils will be moved from the airport to SMU for cataloguing and further study, the television station reported.
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