As the dig continued, excitement mounted in town, and the story was picked up by several news outlets. Strange rumors were flying around about the origin of the bones and the way in which they had ended up in the farmer’s field.
The buzz became a frenzy when a giant skull was found at the site. The skull was a major discovery on its own, but there were also two enormous tusks attached to it, each the length of a fully-grown man. The rumor mill exploded with speculation about elephants or even monsters, but the truth would shock them all.
A Lucky Find
The object was unidentifiable at first, but after a more thorough cleaning, it became clear that Bristle had unearthed a piece of bone. The bone, however, did not bear a resemblance to anything which he’d ever seen before. His first thought was that it looked like a rib bone.
But if that was the case, it was way too big to be from any of the animals common in that region. Bristle’s family was native to the area, they had owned the farm across the road since the 1950s, but he had purchased this property only two months before stumbling upon the intriguing find. The decision to buy the land would rapidly change his life.
Digging for Clues
Bristle’s curiosity was all fired up, and there was no way he was going to stop digging for answers. He removed more and more soil from the site and ultimately unearthed another bone. The second find only made things more complicated because the second object was a lot longer than the first.
Believing that more clues would be found in the ground, Bristle brought in help, and together they dug out a ten-foot-deep tunnel in the sediment. It didn’t take long for news of the strange discovery to reach the townspeople, and there was a lot of interest in the impromptu dig site.
In Over His Head
It was at that point that James Bristle decided that he was in over his head and that he needed to bring in some expert help. He reached out to Prof. Daniel Fisher from the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology. The professor was immediately intrigued and agreed to send a team of his students out to help.
The team arrived on site and was forced to work as quickly as they could because Bristle could only spare one day for the excavation. The students worked carefully yet rapidly in the mud, but their jaws dropped when they figured out exactly what they were dealing with.
A Rare Discovery
More help arrived in the form of a local excavator who volunteered his expertise and some specialized machinery to move the project along. He also said something that Bristle will never forget, “He said he’s been digging for 45 years, and he’s seen nothing like this,” Bristle cited the man’s words.
No one could believe it when the bones were finally identified as the remains of a woolly mammoth — the enormous creature from the long-extinct Ice Age. One mystery had been solved, but there were many more discoveries left to be made.