HAMILTON — With a little trepidation, the Cincinnati Museum Center will return a leg bone and tooth of a mammoth that roamed the earth at least 15,000 years ago to Butler County, where they were found a year ago.

        Construction workers building the Upper Mill Creek Wastewater Treatment facility found the bones of the mammoth, an extinct form of elephant, in the back of Schumacher Commerce Park in West Chester Township. They were 25 feet below ground.

        The county turned them over to the museum for preservation, but did not sign a deed donating them to the museum.

        Butler officials recently told the museum they want the bones back to display at the Government Services Center in Hamilton and to show at schools.

        “We want to make sure Butler County schoolchildren get first access to the bones for their study,” County Commissioner Mike Fox said. “We'll work with museum officials and see that everything is done properly.”

        Dr. Glenn Storrs, the museum's director of science research and curator for vertebrate paleontology, said he's glad Butler County intends to use the bones for educational purposes. But he warned that they are fragile and should not be displayed outside a glass case.

        He estimates the bones to be 15,000 to 19,000 years old.

        Museum officials would like the Butler County commissioners to donate the bones to their facility after they're finished displaying them.

        Because of the bones' delicate condition, the museum has taken almost a full year to dry them, Dr. Storrs said.

        More could be learned from the bones through geochemical and DNA analysis, he said.

        Mr. Fox said he and his two fellow commissioners will consider eventually donating the bones to the museum, but have made no commitment.

        “We haven't thought about it a lot,” he said. “We just want to make sure the kids get their shot at it.”

        The Butler County Environmental Services Department will work with the commissioners and local schools to develop an educational program revolving around the mammoth's bones.

        Tony Parrott, department director, said the county wants to retain control of the bones for at least a year. But the transfer of the bones to Butler County won't occur until September.

        The mammoth's tibia and molar are packed away in temporary storage in a Cincinnati warehouse.

        The mammoths, which had long, curved tusks, lived in this region during the last stages of the latest Ice Age, when the Mill Creek was swampy and full of ponds and lakes created by melting glacial ice.

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