Post by UKarchaeology on Oct 6, 2015 20:53:58 GMT
ANN ARBOR—An ancient mammoth unearthed in a farmer's field southwest of Ann Arbor this week may provide clues about the lives of early humans in the region.
A team of University of Michigan paleontologists and an excavator who donated his time worked all day at the site in Lima Township, roughly 10 miles southwest of Ann Arbor and several miles from the town of Chelsea. They were able to recover about 20 percent of the animal's bones, including the skull and two tusks, numerous vertebrae and ribs, the pelvis and both shoulder blades.
The bones are from an adult male mammoth that likely lived 11,700 to 15,000 years ago, though the remains have not yet been dated, said U-M paleontologist Daniel Fisher, who led the dig. The site holds "excellent evidence of human activity" associated with the mammoth remains, he said.
"We think that humans were here and may have butchered and stashed the meat so that they could come back later for it," said Fisher, director of the U-M Museum of Paleontology and a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Full story: ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/23181-washtenaw-county-mammoth-find-hints-at-role-of-early-humans