People Who Found Scientific Discoveries In Their Own Backyard

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People Who Found Scientific Discoveries In Their Own Backyard

By Joe Burgett - August 28, 2023

First Nations Skeleton Found

Year Found: 2013

Canada is an interesting place. While we tend to call those who lived here before Europeans invaded, well, Native Americans…the Canadians refer to those same people in their country as “First Nations people.” Kind of a weird difference, but this is how you’re able to determine where someone is from. These First Nations tribes were abundant throughout Canada, so it would not be shocking to come across their bones in burial grounds or random villages. However, a couple (Ken Campbell & Nicole Sauve) in Sarnia, Ontario were simply digging post holes to install a fence on their property when they came across bones.

Initially, they thought the bones were from an animal. However, as they began to slowly collect the bones, the skeleton appeared to be human. Uncertain of how long this skeleton had been there, they called the police. The remains belonged to a First Nations woman who lived in the area around the 16th or 17th century, roughly 400 years ago. The archeological significance of this finding is well worth discussing on a bigger scale. Wanting to respect the woman’s remains, they were completely removed from this area and were re-buried at the Aamjiwnaang First Nation cemetery. We put this among our big scientific discoveries in this context, mostly because it led to a woman being buried in a proper place.

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Centuries-Old Jewelry

Year Found: 2011

A man named Andreas K. of Vienna, Austria was simply digging in his backyard when he randomly found jewelry and other precious objects. All of the items were caked with dirt and filth at the time. Andreas truly believed they were worthless but held on to them in his basement for two years. When cleaning out his basement in 2011, he came across the jewelry again. But by this point, the soil had dried and some of the dirt even fell off. This was able to reveal the precious metals and jewels underneath. What does one do when they come across stuff like this? Well, post pictures of the stuff online!

An amateur archeologist saw them and encouraged Andreas to report the discovery to the Austrian Federal Monument Agency. Personnel at the Agency were thrilled to hear from Andreas and were able to analyze the pieces. Andreas’s discovery was described by the Agency as one of the most significant discoveries of medieval treasure in Austria. In total, he discovered 200 rings, brooches, gold-plated silver plates, and other ornate objects. Many were decorated with ornaments like pearls or fossilized coral. He decided to keep the artifacts but he claims that he plans to loan the collection to one of Austria’s museums. Who knows, they might be in one right now!

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The Ackworth Hoard

Year Found: 2012

A man named Owen Johnson was merely inspecting a hole dug by some builders in his garden. Suddenly, upon inspecting the hole he spotted a ceramic pot hidden in the dirt. While he tried to pull the pot out carefully, it cracked open. That was when Johnson would get the shock of a lifetime. What popped out? Gold and silver coins, which he came spilled out “like a slot machine.” Johnson discovered 600 coins from the mid-17th century. A ring was also in the hoard with an inscription that read: “When this you see remember me.” It is assumed that this was buried during the English Civil War, making it one of the bigger scientific discoveries from that time.

Johnson’s home is located in Pontefract, a notable Royalist stronghold during the 1600s. In fact, a military post is said to have been located pretty close. It is thought that a local Royalist was worried the area would be invaded, so he buried all of this to prevent it from being stolen by anyone. At the time, these coins had a face value of £85 ($106) and 12 shillings. That was enough to employ a Civil War soldier for five years. Overall, the Ackworth Hoard in total was valued at £54,492 in 2013, which is what the Wakefield Council bought the collection for. The hoard is now part of the Pontefract Museum for all to enjoy!

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Rare Whale Fossil Found In The Oddest Place

Year Found: 1978

Gary Johnson was like any huge fan of fossils. He might have wanted to make one of the big scientific discoveries we will talk about for years, but never thought he would. Yet in 1978, he did just that when he uncovered a big whale fossil in his family’s backyard. Johnson would then contact a local museum to help, but they did not know how to move the fossil. This resulted in Gary’s big find seemingly just remaining in place, forgotten, until 2014. Once another whale fossil was found nearby and then excavated by the National History Museum, Gary immediately contacted them to help.

The Museum then made plans to get the fossil out. They would end up working with the local Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s search and rescue volunteer unit, which used this excavation as a training exercise. They managed to finally get the huge fossil, as well as the rock it was lodged in, out of the backyard using pulleys and a steel trolley. It weighed more than 1,000lbs when they got it out. The fossil is now in the museum’s research collection. When studied, the museum found out it was roughly 16 to 17 million years old, which is a very rare find for a whale fossil. There had only been about 20 baleen whale fossils found in the world up to this point.

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Viking Sword Unearthed Under Family Home

Year: 2023

It was just recently that a man named Oddbjørn Holum Heiland of Norway made one of the biggest scientific discoveries in his own backyard. He was digging behind his home in Setesdal when he came across something incredible. He initially moved around a bit when an oblong stone was uncovered. While he did not think much about it at first, he dug deeper and claimed: “I looked at it and thought that this looks a lot like a sword blade.” Once he released the contents of his digging bucket, out fell the hilt of the sword. Right away, he stopped digging and called his county municipality.

Jo-Simon Frøshaug Stokke from the Museum of Cultural History then came out and was able to confirm the identity of the sword. They were able to determine it came from 9th to 10th century Vikings based on the shape of the handle. However, further examination will still be needed. When examined further, the contents found were from a grave that also contained a lance, a glass bead gilded with gold, a belt buckle, and even a broach all from the same time period. It is said that one could look at this grave and assume a warrior was buried here, but due to all that was found (including a hand-crafted broach with animal figures on it), this person was likely very well off.

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Stone Age Tools Found In Boulder Backyard

Year: 2008

Picture this. It’s 2008 and Patrick Mahaffy was in the middle of a backyard makeover. He happened to be the President & CEO of a pharmaceutical company based in Boulder, Colorado so he’s not known for back-breaking labor. Therefore, he hired a contractor to dig up the backyard to start up the makeover. When the contractor lifted a shovelful of dirt out of an 18-inch-deep hole, everyone was surprised by what they found. It seemed to be a cache of stone tools. Mahaffy was not sure, so he called up University of Colorado anthropologist Douglas Bamforth.

When analyzing the soil layer and shapes of the 83 tools, it pointed to the Clovis culture. This was a group of people who migrated to North America from Asia roughly 13,000 years ago. They thrived in America for around 500 years as well. Finding this was certainly among the biggest scientific discoveries for the anthropological community, due to the lack of Clovis caches. Finding so many tools in one spot is very rare, and one of only a small group of caches like it ever found in North America. The soil analysis also found that the cache is at the edge of an old flow route for water drainage from the Flatiron Mountains nearby.

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Huge Bag Of Cash

Year: 2011

Some findings might not rank as one of the major scientific discoveries of our generation, but they are important nonetheless. It is 2011 and Wayne Sabaj went into his Chicago garden simply to find some greens, but he instead found a bag filled with cash. Worried, he took the bag to his father. Both men were worried about the finding, as it could have come from a random bank robbery. They did not want to be blamed or assumed to have stolen anything, so they called the police. The officers took the cash as well as another bag they found in the garden. They even counted the money, which is when they realized the Sabajs found $150,000 in cash.

Police managed to trace the money back to their former neighbor, Deloras Johnson. She had gotten rid of the money because she believed it had been cursed. She ended up dying after she buried the money, so her daughter (Diane Howe) came to collect the cash. Weirdly, Sabaj & Howe went to court in 2013 to determine how to split the money but before a verdict could be reached, Sabaj sadly died. His father then suffered a cardiac arrest when he found out his son passed. A judge ultimately decided to split the money between both families. Honestly though, one would assume Howe should have kept the entire thing since it was her parents’ money, right?

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Butchered Female Mammoth

Year: 2013

It’s pretty interesting to be a paleontologist who makes amazing scientific discoveries in your own backyard. And that is exactly what happened to Timothy Rowe. He first learned that fossils could be in his backyard when a neighbor noticed something sticking out of a hillside on a New Mexico property belonging to Rowe. When he examined the area, Rowe found a tusk, bashed-in mammoth skull, and several other bones that appeared to be deliberately broken. He determined this was a site where two mammoths had been butchered. He might not have realized at the time that he made one of the biggest scientific discoveries of our time.

The findings later proved him right. A female mammoth and her calf were butchered likely by a local human population. This was where scientific discoveries like this became invaluable to the world. The bones date back 37,000 years, which means humans would have been in North America long before we once thought. It is unlikely any other species would have been able to do this kind of skilled butchering. It also had to be done using tools, which might even give us more information about when tools were first being used in human populations in North America as well.

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Saddle Ridge Hoard

Year: 2013

A couple named John and Mary were walking their dog in their backyard when they happened across the top of a decaying canister poking out of the ground. Of course, they dug it out with a stick and then brought it inside. When they opened the container, they came across a batch of discs immersed in dirt. The couple cleaned them and discovered they were actually $20 gold coins from the 1890s. They rushed back to where they found the first canister and found seven more cans! In all, the couple discovered over 1,000 coins. Weirdly, the couple reburied the coins to hide them and contacted a coin dealer named Don Kagin.

Kagin spent the next several months trying to restore the coins. John & Mary made one of the best scientific discoveries in terms of finding old coins that were likely long since gone. In total, John & Mary found 1,427 coins in all that had been minted between 1847 and 1894. The face value for these coins totaled $27,980 but Kagin felt they were worth a lot more. Some of them were very rare. In fact, a dozen of these coins are among the best surviving in the world. Due to Kagin’s expert opinion, the total coin collection is now valued at $11 million. This makes the coins one of the biggest scientific discoveries that one found around their home.

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Bones Hidden In Ben Franklin’s Basement

Year: 1997

Benjamin Franklin is one of the United States’ Founding Fathers, who was also well-known for his inventions. He was never one to shy away from a good party, particularly those in France. However, a lot of people began to wonder if Franklin had a secret that no one ever knew about him. In November of 1997, the skeletal remains of at least 28 bodies were found in the basement of Franklin’s very elegant townhouse. At the time, police thought this was the work of a serial killer currently at large in their city. Yet that was when one of the most compelling scientific discoveries of the late 1990s started to get very interesting.

When the remains were examined, they dated back to the mid-1700s. What’s interesting is that the home, located at 36 Craven Street, is not an American address at all. It is in the heart of London, England. Franklin was born in 1705 in Boston, Massachusetts. However, he was a diplomat for the United States as an adult and lived at this address. Yet one should not assume Franklin had a dark secret. Rather, the bones come from an anatomy school that had been run by William Hewson, the son-in-law of Franklin’s landlady, Margaret Stevenson. The school was opened at Craven Street by Hewson after a falling out with his mentor, which Franklin actually wrote about.

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The Backyard Tunnel Into An Egyptian Pyramid

Year: 2014-2015

If you think these other scientific discoveries found in a backyard or local property were interesting, they don’t hold a candle to this. An Egyptian man named Nagy was digging in his backyard in 2014, which was technically illegal. In doing so, he uncovered large stone blocks. Without realizing it, Nagy uncovered a corridor roughly 33 feet beneath the ground. When Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities learned about Nagy’s discovery, he sent archeologists to his home. What he found was a causeway to the Pyramid of Khufu, the oldest of all the remaining Giza pyramids.

Funny enough, archaeologists had been searching for this exact corridor for more than three decades. Herodotus actually mentioned it in his Histories writing and claimed he even visited it in the 5th century BCE. He wrote that the passage was enclosed and covered in reliefs. However, before Nagy, only small remnants were ever found. The Khufu pyramid complex is said to have a connection to a lost temple near the Nile River. Due to this, the discovery of the causeway allowed archeologists to assume the temple might be buried beneath the village of Nazlet el-Samman. Perhaps, they will go digging there to find out one day.

Where Do We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:

Harvard University

Guinness Book of World Records

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