Nevada Teens Discover Prehistoric Bones

Bones found by two teenage boys who were riding motorcycles in the Pine Nut Mountains may be those of a 3 million-year-old mastodon.

A retired paleontologist who examined the bones said they appear to date back to the Pliocene epoch, according to Gary C. Bowyer, a historical archeologist with the Bureau of Land Management.

Derek Prosser and a friend, Dustin Turner, were riding their motorcycles in the Pine Nuts last week when they found the site. They took the fossilized fragments to Bowyer.

Prosser collected several pieces of bone, including one that resembles a huge ball joint, and took them to his residence, where Bowyer looked at them Tuesday before heading to the site.

“These are definitely not cow bones,” he told the Record-Courier. “They’re huge.”

Bowyer said this was his first experience with a large animal fossil. A 7.5 million-year-old fossil, identified as a gomphothere, was found south of Yerington in 1995.

Prosser said it was obvious that he and Turner weren’t the first visitors to the site. There was a cup from a convenience store half-filled with a soft drink placed next to a pile of smashed bone fragments.

“It looks like there has been another person up there who just dug a hole in the ground and smashed the bones. It just must have been someone stupid,” Prosser said.

Bowyer said the site is being monitored by BLM law enforcement officers.

Vertebrate fossils are protected and may only be collected with a permit.

Bowyer praised Prosser, who acknowledges that he’s more comfortable talking about motorcycles than mastodons.

“He had the sense to pick up those bones and contact somebody,” he said.

BLM officials said they may organize an emergency excavation to remove the bones because the site is close to civilization and could be subject to more tampering and vandalism.