Homeowners Digging Fence Make Startling Discovery -- and Get Stuck With $5,000 Bill

A Canadian couple digging a fence earlier this month dredged up more than just dirt and roots. They found the skeleton of a 400-year-old aboriginal woman.

But that wasn't their only surprise: she ended up coming with a $5,000 price tag as well.

According to the Toronto Star, Ken Campbell dug up a few bones at first and at his wife's prodding, they looked for more.

“I said, ‘They’re not animal bones, Ken. Let’s dig some more and see what we can find,’" Nicole Sauve, told the Star.

The couple from Ontario are appealing a law that requires them to pay for excavation of their yard after a historic skeleton was discovered. (Photo: Nicole Sauve, via The Star)

Upon discovering a full human skeleton, the coupled called in forensic anthropologist Michael Spence. Here's more from the Star on what he concluded:

Spence told the Star that the skeleton was that of a woman who was about 24 years old when she died, probably in the late 1500s or early 1600s.

The condition of her teeth led him to suspect she was part of hunting, gathering and fishing society.

The couple lives by the Blue Water Bridge, an area that once was the centre of an Ojibwa trade network. Spence said the woman is probably a descendant of those merchants.