21st Century Wire says…
This is an incredible find…
According to the Smithsonian, “Paleontologists from the University of Michigan led by Daniel Fisher rushed out to the field and started digging, reports Rachel Feltman for The Washington Post. “We get calls once or twice a year about new specimens like this,” Fisher told the paper, but many of those calls end up being mastodons.”
Watch:
An American farmer who excavated a mammoth skeleton from his land last week decided to donate the find to the University of Michigan.
The mammoth’s bones could be up to 15,000 years old. The discovery was made during routine digging for drainage.
The mammoth’s remains were discovered as Jim Bristle was installing a drainage pipe at his Chelsea-area soybean farm in Michigan last Thursday.
At the beginning, giant ribs were dug up. After realizing the scale of the find, Bristle called the University of Michigan and Dan Fisher, a professor of paleontology and director of the University’s Museum of Paleontology.
Fisher arrived along with his team to complete the excavation, which found rib bones, vertebrae, tusks, pelvic bones, and a mostly-intact skull. The professor called the discovery one of the top ten most significant finds in Michigan history and said the mammoth would be named the Bristle Mammoth, after the farmer.
A Michigan Farmer Found a Near-Complete Mammoth Skeleton in His Field http://t.co/YaAdgJ6BZ0 pic.twitter.com/BkEudnqM8K
— PaleoAnthropology+ (@Qafzeh) October 2, 2015
Super cool! Woolly mammoth bones discovered on farm near Chelsea, Michigan http://t.co/OXMIW35pqr pic.twitter.com/Eym18mefhP
— Jonathan Kolby (@MyFrogCroaked) October 2, 2015
SEE MORE ANCIENT HISTORY AT: 21st Century Wire Ancient History Files