In Scotchtown, about 70 miles northwest of New York City, one couple came upon an unusual and thrilling paleontological find in their backyard.

When a homeowner in New York was recently doing yardwork and stumbled upon something in the dirt, they initially thought it was just an old baseball — but it turned out to be part of a mastodon jaw. After further digging,

The mastodon jaw and some other bone fragments were found in late September in a backyard near Scotchtown, New York.