Headless no more: Missing Yukon horse skull returned

An old horse skeleton has been reunited with its gnarled skull, and Yukon archeologists couldn't be happier.

"We're really pleased that someone turned this in," said government archeologist Greg Hare, about the skull.

"This pretty much completes the skeleton."

Tourists first found the skull and other bones last week, in the Carcross desert south of Whitehorse. The finding was immediately reported to Harebut by the time he arrived at the site the following morning, the skull was gone.

It was frustrating not because the boneswereespecially old or rare (maybe a century old, Hare said), butbecause Yukon archeologists have long sought a complete horse skeleton for research purposes.

A plea went out for the skull's return, and on Monday morninga mandelivered it tothe office of the Whitehorse Starnewspaper.

According to the paper, the mansaid he found the bones at a campsite. He brought it to the Starbecause he'd read about it in the paper.

Hare is delighted.

"We use it for archeological and paleontological purposes," Hare said."So we can use this now as our reference skeleton for ice age horses, or modern horses, or whatever.

"So it's a really great thing."