Extraordinary find: Kayaking sisters discover ancient bear skull
The skull is at least hundreds of years old.
Two sisters in Kansas were kayaking when they made an extraordinary find.
An ancient bear skull, sticking out of a sandbar.
Ashley and Erin Watt were exploring the Arkansas river in August when they made the find. They took some photos and posted them on Facebook, which caught the attention of the State's Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.
The skull is believed to have been preserved in the sands of the river until it was displaced by major flooding this year.
"The bear skull was washed out of the same river sediments that routinely produce the skulls and bones of the American bison, some of which could date back as far as the last Ice Age," Mike Everhart, one of the Sternberg paleontologists who examined the skull, told CNN.
"Whether it is hundreds or thousands of years old, the skull gives us a better insight into the richness of life on the plains before Western man," Everhart said.
Paleontologists are hoping to verify its age and that it is the skull of a grizzly. If it is a grizzly skull, it will be the first evidence of that animal in the state.
