quote:

After a full day of digging through a soybean field near Chelsea, Mich., researchers at the University of Michigan confirmed a farmer's fairly unusual discovery: a large set of bones belonging to a woolly mammoth.

The find Thursday afternoon represents one of the more complete sets of woolly mammoth bones to ever be found in the state, said Dan Fisher, a professor at the University of Michigan and the director of the Museum of Paleontology.

“It’s a pretty exciting day,” James Bollinger, an excavator and local resident who lent his services to the dig, told the Free Press Thursday. “I’ve been digging for 45 years and I’ve never dug anything up like that.”

The bones were first discovered on Monday, in what amounted to pure accident. Neighbors Trent Satterthwaite and James Bristle, both farmers, were on Bristle’s farm on Scio Church Road in Lima Township, working to drain water from part of the field.

They had dug about 8 feet deep when a wood-like substance started to appear. Pretty soon they realized the wood was actually bone.

"I think we just found a dinosaur or something,” Satterthwaite recalled joking with Bristle.

They then contacted the University of Michigan, which referred them to Fisher.

In an unusual twist, Fisher said Bristle gave him one day to dig on his land, because of a tight farming schedule tied to the harvest. Bristle could not be reached for comment Thursday.

So on Thursday morning, a wild one-day digging sprint ensued.

About 15 people from the university arrived with several others showing up to observe. Satterthwaite and a local excavator, James Bollinger, lent their help with some heavy equipment.

Together, they uncovered a surprising 20% or so of the woolly mammoth’s skeleton. There was the head and tusks, several ribs, a set of vertebrae, and more.

While there have been about 30 woolly mammoths found in Michigan, only five or fewer have been uncovered so extensively, Fisher said.

“We didn’t stop to eat or drink,” he added. “It was a hard, hard day of work, but every bit worth it.”

This particular mammoth was likely killed by humans 10,000 or 15,000 years ago then stored in a pond, which was a preservation technique at the time. Many of the missing parts were probably eaten by humans, Fisher said.

And the mammoth, which was in its 40s or 50s when it died, might not technically be “woolly.” Instead, it could be a “Jeffersonian mammoth” -- a hybrid between a woolly mammoth and Columbian mammoth, according to Fisher.

The bones are being temporarily stored nearby. It wasn't clear late Thursday as where they will eventually end up. They need to be cleaned and dried, and then their research value will be more precisely assessed.

Satterthwaite was just happy to play a part.

“You have a better chance of winning the lotto than doing what we just did,” he added.

CharlestonJew posted:

Yeah but how does it taste?

Bonzo posted:

How do you use a pond to store meat?

BeefThief posted:

its trunk is perfectly suited to snorting coke

THE DOG HOUSE posted:

sounds pretty fuckin gross but I imagine its bette rthan "leave thousands of pounds of meat in the field" I guess

ANIME IS BLOOD posted:

Phlairdon posted:

Serious question. In rare cases like this, does the museum or research team have to pay the farmer for the bones seeing how it was buried on his property?

ANIME IS BLOOD posted:

Phlairdon posted:

Serious question. In rare cases like this, does the museum or research team have to pay the farmer for the bones seeing how it was buried on his property?