One may not expect dead remains of an animal as old as ice age to appear in a university stadium. Perhaps, this happened in the Oregon State University’s football stadium, the bones of mammoth and other ancient animals were discovered by some construction workers while working. The incident soon lured the interested students and professors towards the site, who ultimately took the responsibility of safely sorting out the bones from soil, leading the construction workers to shift their construction work elsewhere for short duration.

A team of university students working on the field of Reser Stadium in Corvallis found a femur from one of the ancient elephants and bones from a bison and camel, all dating back 10,000 years. The university archaeologist believed that the place of erection where the bones were found might be a pond or water body, as it is believed that early sick animals often went to a body of water to die. Around 40 students were found excavating the fragments of bones first spotted by construction workers in a 10-foot pit.

“For all of us this is an once-in-a-lifetime experience, most of us rearranged our schedules so we could come”, said Fry, a junior in public health, and Destine, a third-year pre-pharmacy student. Such a finding is not at all unusual according to associate professor of anthropology Loren Davis, the area surrounding Willamette Valley once was inhabited by the creatures whose bones were discovered.

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and in northern species, a covering of long hair. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Last, the northern Africa mammoth disappeared about 3 or 4 million years ago.