commandoNate
WKR
I found a handful of really cool things during Archery season in Colorado this year. Not least of which was my first archery bull after several years of trying. One was this really neat stone point. I was slugging up a mountainside at around 11,000 feet one day and something near my foot jumped out at me and there was a stone point! The first one I've found in the mountains. Then a couple weeks later and only about 3 miles away I was working up a ridge after a bugle I'd heard and I decided to move over one draw to head up without the wind busting me. I was on an extremely steep north facing slope and thus climbing very slowly. This white object jumped out at me, particularly because it appeared to be hollow. I then noticed some tooth marks from mice chewing on it and immediately knew that it was bone of some kind, likely a skull. Then I saw the outline of the horn on the surface of the soil with moss growing on it. I knew immediately what I was looking at. I decided that the bull could wait and I'd take my time digging this thing out. The part of the skull that was exposed is the part that would have had the other horn. It took about 45 minutes to dig out with a trekking pole and rocks as my digging tools. It was broken in 2 pieces, the lower section was actually on top of the upper section so that took me some time to figure out what was going on. So now it just sits on the bench in my garage and I'm wondering what I should do with it. Do I clean it up with water? Do I try to do contact someone to determine how old it may be? Let it sit and rot in my garage so that my kids have to deal with it someday? Curious what you would do with it. No wrong answers.
This is what I saw: Lighter in the photo for some size ref. Below and to the right of the lighter is the broken/decayed portion of the skull that jumped out at me. Directly below the lighter in the picture is the left (only) horn pounting down in the photo.
After I removed it:
This is the stone point I found a couple weeks earlier:
This is what I saw: Lighter in the photo for some size ref. Below and to the right of the lighter is the broken/decayed portion of the skull that jumped out at me. Directly below the lighter in the picture is the left (only) horn pounting down in the photo.
After I removed it:
This is the stone point I found a couple weeks earlier: