You never know what you’re going to find when you start digging. If you’re not careful, usually it’s just electric or gas lines (Call before you dig!). Sometimes, though, you find approximately 10,000-year-old mammoth bones, like they did while preparing for an expansion at Oregon State’s football facility.
Oregon State was trying to build new locker rooms and instead discovered historic mammoth bones
I mean, what else would you expect to find?
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“We believe we have an intact femur from a mammoth,” OSU spokesman Steve Clark said Tuesday afternoon. “There also appear to be bones from other species, including possibly a bison and a camel.”
Mark Massari, deputy athletics director, said the bones were found at the site of what will be the future locker room for Beavers football team.
“Maybe the archaeologist can tell you if it’s good luck,” he said.
The remains of mammoths and other large animals from the early Holocene are fairly common in Oregon, so it’s not exactly shocking that a specimen was found in Corvallis. But in terms of things that have caused slight delays to stadium construction, this is probably up there with the more unique circumstances.
So, is unearthing the remains of a mammoth good luck? We may have to get back to you on that, but Oregon State could use a little run of luck after the past few years of results on the field. This would also make for an extremely rad origin story if Oregon State ever wants to change mascots from the Beavers to the Mammoths.
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