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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Mammoth bones were discovered this week during construction [livescience.com] at Oregon State University [oregonstate.edu], but the show must go on:

A construction crew working on an expansion and renovation of the OSU Beavers' Valley Football Center uncovered the remains of the beast while digging in the north end of Reser Stadium. They found a large femur bone — likely a mammoth's — as well as bones from other extinct, ice-age mammals, including a bison and what is either an ancient horse or a camel.

"There are quite a few bones, and dozens of pieces," Loren Davis, an associate professor of anthropology at OSU, said in a statement [oregonstate.edu]. "Some of the bones are not in very good shape, but some are actually quite well preserved."

Davis and his students have yet to determine the mammoth's species — for instance, it could be a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) or a woolly mammoth (M. primigenius), although the latter tended to live farther north.

[...] Construction workers found the animal bones in a 10-foot-deep (3 meters) plot. They stopped work as soon as they uncovered the femur, said Tim Sissel, the senior project manager of Hunt/Fortis, a joint venture and general contractor on the project. However, because there were no human artifacts or remains found, the site is not considered an archaeological site, Davis said. So, he and his colleagues removed the dirt containing the bones, and construction on the stadium continued.

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