Two skeletons, believed to belong to pioneers, have been found at Crystal Beach in Ontario, Canada.

They’re both close to each other and oriented in an east/west direction, which is kind of the method of a Christian burial,” said senior archeologist Martin Cooper.

“Right now, we’re leaning towards them being European, probably pioneer burial.”

A construction crew installing a natural gas line found several bones Tuesday while excavating near the road.

Niagara Regional Police and the coroner’s office were called in.

A second skeleton was found by an anthropologist, who conducted a forensic examination of the scene along with police forensic officers.

Cooper said one of the skeletons was disturbed during the excavation, but the other is relatively intact.

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Ancient reptile footprints have been found along the Bay of Fundy shoreline in New Brunswick, Canada.

“These are quite remarkable,” he said Thursday. “It’s not just one set of footprints. The slabs are covered with footprints.”

Miller said he actually had his back to the slab and was examining plant fossils when the footprints were discovered.

Falcon-Lang said he was looking for something else, and only discovered the prints after he tripped and fell, scraping his knee.

“I still have the scars to prove it,” he said.

The footprints are quite small — only about four centimetres long. Falcon-Lang said the reptile that made them would have been about 20 centimetres long and resembled a gecko.

He said it is probably an early reptile called Hylonomus. Fossil skeletons have been found in adjacent Nova Scotia.

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The 18th-century home of a Scottish settler has been found in a park in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

The location of the late 1700s homestead at Stanhope was revealed in 2008, when the remnants of an old garbage pile was discovered. Parks Canada staff and the local historical society, about 30 people in all, hope to get a good look at the foundation this week.

“We really don’t know what the structure was like,” Parks Canada archeologist Rob Ferguson said Monday.

“The cellar is large, it could have a stone floor, could have a wooden floor, could have an earth floor.”

The first day of digging also revealed small artifacts: a piece of window glass and a small piece of ceramic with a blue decoration.

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The HMS Investigator, which was abandoned in the Arctic during a 19th century rescue mission has been found by archaeologists in Canada in Mercy Bay.

Canada’s government says the discovery bolsters its claim to sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, which is feared threatened by increased shipping.

The Investigator was abandoned while searching for the Franklin expedition, itself lost with all its crew during a mission to discover the passage.

“It’s an incredible sight,” Canadian Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice told the BBC by telephone from Mercy Bay.

“You’re looking at what people have not seen in 156 years, which is a remarkably intact British sailing vessel.”

The Investigator, captained by Robert McClure, left Britain in 1848, ultimately making two attempts to find the Franklin expedition.

Its crew abandoned the ship on the western side of the Canadian Arctic when it became trapped in pack ice.

Running low on supplies and food, Capt Robert McClure and his men were eventually rescued by another party from the Royal Navy.

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The fossilized remains of an 80-million-year-old predatory fish are being dug out of an ancient seabed in Manitoba, Canada.

Paleontologists cleaning the specimens gathered from one of the sites found a set of massive xiphactinus jawbones locked on piece of flipper belonging to a mosasaur — a marine reptile.

The CFDC fossil crew is now back at the site for a major excavation. More than six metres of earth has been removed, exposing more and more pieces belonging to the xiphactinus and its prehistoric prey, said CFDC general manager Tyler Schroeder.

“The site is proving to be a fantastic find, with both xiphactinus and mosasaur fossils present, as well as other specimens,” he said.

“We’ll likely be excavating at this fossil-rich spot throughout this year and possibly into next year.”

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