Crews unearth ancient bison skulls

Two bison skulls, believed to be about 5,000 years old, have been uncovered by construction workers digging a new parkade in Banff.

The discovery will help archeologists determine exactly where in the area the animals once roamed. Bill Perry, assistant archeologist with Parks Canada, says the skulls likely washed down the Bow River during a long-ago flood.

Carbon dating will be used to determine the exact age of the remains, while DNA tests will help reveal what they ate.

"It can tell us whether the environment was open grassland, whether it was all poplar and aspen or evergreens, and that gives us a really good clue as to what other animals were around, what early man was doing," Perry said, adding that the skulls were "waterlogged and frozen and thawed and frozen and thawed, but they're still in pretty good shape."

Crews were digging about four metres below ground level on Bear Street when they thought they found a piece of wood.

"I reached down to throw it out of the hole and up came this buffalo skull. I was quite amazed, actually, beging that deep in a hole and pulling up something like that was pretty amazing," Gerald Wickson said.

Perry says in the last year, the discovery of ancient bison in the mountain valleys has become more common.