There are archaeological studies that take scientists a lot of effort, time and money to find, but there are also cases that are discovered in very coincidental and unexpected circumstances that no one expected.

In 2015, soybean farmer James Bristle made an amazing discovery that amazed the scientific community. Accordingly, James and a friend were plowing the soil in a soybean field in Lima town, Washtenaw county, southern Michigan (USA) when they accidentally plowed something. At first, James thought it was just a curved fence, buried in mud.

However, the deeper he dug, the more surprised James was because it was not as small as he imagined. He decided to report it to the authorities. Immediately, the incident attracted the attention of the media and the scientific community.

A team of paleontologists from the University of Michigan and an excavator were mobilized to the field to study. It turned out that what James had hit was not a fence but part of the pelvis of an ancient mammoth that lived 15,000 years ago.

In addition to the pelvis, archaeologists also found the skull, two tusks, many vertebrae, ribs and both shoulder blades of the animal.

What is special is that archaeologists believe that this elephant died because of being killed by humans. “We think that humans were here and may have killed and butchered the animal,” said Daniel Daniel Fisher, the scientist who led the excavation of the animal’s remains. “Three rocks the size of basketballs found next to the remains may have been used by ancient people to fix the animal’s body in a pond.”

This discovery has caused scientists to once again re-examine previous hypotheses about North American humans existing before the Clovis era – believed to be 13,000 years ago.

Mammoths and mastodons, another elephant-like creature, were common in North America before disappearing about 11,700 years ago. “There are about 300 mastodons and 30 mammoths that have been discovered in Michigan. However, most mammoth remains are not as complete as the mammoth found in James’ field,” Fisher said.

James told the Ann Arbor News that he had purchased the field a few months earlier. He and a friend were plowing the field when they made the strange discovery.

The animal’s bones were cleaned and examined by University of Michigan researchers for cut marks to show evidence of human impact. Studying the bones could shed light on exactly when humans arrived in the Americas, a topic of debate among archaeologists.