A Sierra College paleontology expert has confirmed that two objects rescued from the ground after demolition of Auburn’s historic Hawver House are ancient fossils.

The fossils were discovered by Gene Lorance, who is writing a book about amateur paleontologist J.C. Hawver’s cave discoveries near Auburn. The Hawver House, believed to have been built in 1880, was torn down Oct. 6 to make way for an In-N-Out Burger parking lot expansion.

Lorance scooped up the fossils before they could be trucked off the property with dirt to be used at a nearby location for fill.

Lorance took four potential fossils to Sierra College to be examined. Dick Hilton, a Sierra College professor of geology and author of “Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California,” said Monday that the largest piece is believed to be a cow bone from modern times. Another object was determined to be a jawbone from an opossum.

But the two other objects were identified by Hilton as pieces of bony under-armor from a glyptodont – the giant-sized ancestor of today’s armadillo.

Hilton said that while the fossils – which were found on ground that would have been under the Hawver House before it was demolished – likely belonged to Hawver, he doesn’t think they originated in the Cool cave the Auburn dentist explored. Hawver unearthed a treasure trove of fossils that now are kept by the University of California, Berkeley.

The fossils are black in color, which point to similar objects found in Florida, Hilton said.

The house, located off Highway 49 in Auburn, was torn down without an organized dig to determine if more fossils or other historical objects were present in the soil.

Hawver lived in the house until his death in 1914 and Lorance said he suspects dirt trucked to the Gold Country Fairgrounds as fill could yield more history. Seven hundred truckloads are being taken away from the site as it is graded to make way for an expanded parking lot and lengthened drive-through lane at the popular fast-food eatery.

“If it wasn’t for Gene, we wouldn’t have anything,” Hilton said.

Hilton said there’s still an opportunity for discovery.

“If they spread the topsoil on the fairgrounds and let it rain, you never know what they could find,” he said.

Lorance is working with the family-owned In-N-Out business to place a stone marker and plaque on the property to commemorate the site’s history.

With permission to take photos of the demolition, Lorance said he gravitated to where the house had been and first found a knuckle-like object that now appears to be a cow bone. Hilton said he discovered saw marks on it.

The two suspect the bone may have been in a box under the house at one time.

“I was scuffling things with my feet and then dug around the area,” Lorance said. “I found the two hard objects that turned out to be fossils but I’m not a paleontologist.”

Hilton was able to make the fossil determination and cleaned and preserved a remnant of a mammal that walked the earth around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. It’s destined to be shown in a display at he Sierra College library.

It’s a small remnant of a large animal that roamed the California region as well as Florida. The glyptodont’s shell alone was roughly the size of a compact car.

The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.