Seeing how the dog reacted, the police knew that it was something of importance. This was the push they needed to bring in experts from the archaeology field. The moment the two scientists laid eyes on the object, they knew it was a relic from a different time and quickly concluded that it was, in fact, ancient.
But of course, the two had to prove it through scientific investigation before anything else. They wouldn’t be able to do it on site, so the scientists had to transport it to the nearby laboratory for proper testing and research.