Mammoth exhibit highlights the 'unfolding process of discovery'

Image credit: Daryl Marshke, Michigan Photography

On the fourth floor of the University of Michigan's Museum of Natural History, in a large gallery set aside for temporary exhibits, a room has been built to display the remains of an ice age mammoth pulled from a farmer's field near Chelsea on Oct. 1, 2015.

The Bristle Mammoth exhibit opens to the public Nov. 5. And unlike most other museum exhibits, the designers left empty space to accommodate additional research findings and mammoth remains that could be added in the future.

That's because the Bristle Mammoth investigation is a scientific work in progress. And if tantalizing preliminary results are confirmed through additional studies—including a planned return to the Bristle farm next month for a second excavation—the museum curators will likely need every square foot of that extra display space.

A multi-pronged analysis of Bristle Mammoth bones, tusks and teeth over the past year suggests the specimen could help rewrite the story of Michigan prehistory, specifically the timing of the arrival of the first humans and their earliest interactions with mammoths, whose meat was a prized food source... (Video) University of Michigan / Link 2


Video: New University of Michigan "Bristle Mammoth" Exhibit Highlights First Year's Findings - University of Michigan
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Actualización. Huge Skeleton Suggests Ancient Americans Butchered Wooly Mammoths | Inverse
Just like us, they kept meat in a 'fridge'.

December 5, 2017. Paleontologists have unearthed evidence suggesting that ancient humans butchered wooly mammoths and stored the meat for later. At a dig site on a farm near Chelsea, Michigan, a city about 60 miles west of Detroit, a team from the University of Michigan uncovered the remains of one of those mammoths in the remnants of an ancient pond — together with three curiously placed stones that suggested the mammoth was put there on purpose.

The excavation, which took place at the end of November, marked a return to the site for the scientists, who were hoping to recover some missing pieces of a mammoth skeleton they’d partially dug up in 2015. In addition to finding more pieces, the team also examined the sediments surrounding the huge herbivore’s remains, which fill in some of the details of its life and death. Their working theory is that the mammoth, which radiocarbon dating suggests is over 15,000 years old, was purposefully stored in the pond for later eating...