Woolly mammoth unearthed in his soybean field
By Diego Flammini, Farms.com
What a yield for Michigan farmer James Bristle.
While he and a friend were digging in his soybean field, they came across what they thought was a misshapen fence post. It was bent and covered in mud.
What it actually ended up being, was part of a woolly mammoth’s pelvis from about 15,000 years ago.
An excavator and a group of paleontologists from the University of Michigan made their way to Lima Township where they started to dig deeper to see what, if anything, they could find.
“What we found here is a partial skeleton of a woolly mammoth,” said Daniel Fisher, Director of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology in an American Press video. “It was an adult male, probably in its forties at the time of its death (and it) probably lived between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.”
The animal wasn’t complete at the time of discovery, but the skull, tusks, ribs, shoulder blades and portions of vertebrae were found.
Generally, when bones are discovered on a property, the bones belong to the property’s owner. Bristle has generously decided to donate the bones to the University of Michigan.
Bristle said that while the bones are still on his farm, many groups of people have made trips to his farm to see them.
Another incredible farm find is the Arabia, a steamboat which hit a snag in the Missouri River and sank in what’s now Kansas City on September 5th, 1896 was discovered in 1987 by Bob Hawley and his sons Greg and David. The boat was down 45ft in a cornfield and the recovered pieces are in the Arabia Steamboat Museum.