BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Some fossilized baby dinosaur bones that changed how the world thinks about dinosaurs are back in Montana, ending a legal fight that began in 1988 and extended through the halls of Yale and Princeton universities.

Marion Brandvold, now 92, found the bones in 1978 west of Choteau, and put them on display at her rock shop in Bynum, east of the Rocky Mountain Front. That's where Jack Horner, then with Princeton University and now director of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, first saw them.

In his 1988 book ‘‘Digging Dinosaurs,'' Horner called the bones ‘‘the most important dinosaur fossils I've ever found.''

Horner and colleagues soon began digging on the site where Brandvold had found the bones, eventually finding remains of thousands of dinosaurs, including babies in nests with evidence they had been tended by adults.

Before then, it was thought dinosaurs simply laid eggs and walked away from them.

Horner named the dinosaur ‘‘maiasaura,'' which means good mother lizard. The species is now Montana's state fossil.

The land eventually was purchased by The Nature Conservancy and became what is now known as Egg Mountain.

Horner took the original bones back to Princeton for further study. Brandvold insisted the transfer was only a loan. Horner maintained it was a gift to Princeton.

Brandvold said she began asking in 1988 that the bones be returned, but they weren't and she sued Horner, Princeton, the Museum of the Rockies and Yale, which by that time had obtained the bones from Princeton.

The suit was settled earlier this month, with the return of the bones to Brandvold. She also received $35,000 in cash and two cast replicas of the baby dinosaurs from the Museum of the Rockies.

Brandvold said money was not her goal and she simply wanted the bones in Montana, not in Connecticut.

The bones were returned to her attorney's office, marked ‘‘Fragile. Baby Dinosaur.''

Attorney Fred Paoli said the bones will be donated to a nonprofit paleontology institution controlled by Brandvold's son Dave Trexler, in Bynum.

‘‘They're going to be on display in the county where the bones were found,'' he said. ‘‘It's the happiest of all possible endings,'' he told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in an interview.

Trexler said the display should be ready by June 1.

Paoli gave Horner credit for pushing for an equitable settlement.

‘‘He's the one who drove the settlement,'' Paoli said. ‘‘He wanted to do the right thing.''