Michigan farmer James Bristle accidentally discovered the remains of an ancient woolly mammoth while he and his friend were digging in his soy field. Thinking he had hit a bent fence post, Bristle was surprised to find that they had stumbled upon a part of a woolly mammoth, CBS Detroit reported.
"It was probably a rib bone that came up," he told Ann Arbor News.
The farmer's discovery turned out to be an almost complete skeleton of a woolly mammoth that died between 11,000 and 15,000 years ago, according to University of Michigan professor Daniel Fisher, who was contacted by Bristle about the find, The Washington Post reported.
Fisher said there are only 10 locations in Michigan that have mammoth skeletons. The one that Bristle found in Lima Township, Chelsea was quite intact, with only the hind limbs, feet and a few parts missing.
"We extracted this very nice skull and tusks and we found the jaw of the animal, various ribs and vertebra," Fisher said, according to CBS Detroit.
He said humans probably butchered the animal, which he estimated to be 40 years old, and threw it in a pond in order to store the meat and return for it later.
"It turns out we are dealing with carcass parts of animals, in some cases hunted, in other cases maybe not, but in any event, butchered by ancient humans, what we call Paleo-Indians -- people who lived in North America about 12,000 to 13,000 years ago," Fisher said.
Fisher and his team began excavating the mammoth's remains Thursday, working double time because he could only give a day for the excavation. He said the skeleton could provide important information on when humans first arrived in the Americas.
