U-M researchers recover more mammoth bones from Chelsea-area farm

CHELSEA, Mich.-University of Michigan paleontologists conducted a second excavation this week at the Chelsea-area farm where the skull, tusks and dozens of intact bones of an ice age mammoth were pulled from the ground in late 2015. A U-M news video of the skull and two attached tusks being hoisted from the muddy excavation pit with a backhoe on Oct. 1, 2015, has been viewed more than 875,000 times on YouTube. Nothing that dramatic happened during the two-day follow-up. But 40 additional bones and bone fragments from the Bristle Mammoth were recovered, and the researchers were able to thoroughly document the site. That just wasn't possible two years ago, in the one-day rush to get the skull and tusks out of the ground. "This return to the Bristle site was absolutely a success.