A resident of a rural region in the north, a farmer, had long dreamed of reducing electricity costs on his small farm. He decided to bring a self-contained gas pipeline to his house.
The work promised to be serious, especially for one person alone. That’s why the farmer rented a powerful excavator equipped with a hydraulic bucket.
Since the machine was not his, he chose to practice first on a plot of his field, soft and fallow for a long time. The soil there was loose, without roots or stones.
However, at a little more than one and a half meters deep, the bucket suddenly got stuck.
Fearing damage to the expensive machine, he immediately cut the engine. Something was in the trench — and that something resisted the bucket.
Armed with a shovel and a flashlight, he went down into the excavation. At first, he thought he had hit an erratic boulder, as one often finds blocks left by glaciers in these regions.
But the more he dug, the stranger the discovery seemed. The object was not only hard, but also smooth, as if polished.
After two hours of strenuous manual effort, the farmer caught sight of something that took his breath away. It was a massive bone, curved like a horn or a tusk.
Next to it, another one, symmetrical. Looking closer, he made out the shape of a skull: a high forehead, a long curved jaw, and empty eye sockets.
He called two neighbors, and they quickly started digging. Minute by minute, it became clear that it was neither a cow nor a moose. It was something ancient.
The next morning, the farmer contacted the university in the regional capital. The day after, a paleontology professor and a group of students arrived at his field.
The scientist was overjoyed: according to him, the remains belonged to an adult woolly mammoth, whose age could exceed 20,000 years.
The tusks, skull, and partially preserved ribs were in excellent condition, indicating that the mammoth had died and been buried quickly, possibly due to a landslide or flood.
But the professor’s joy was darkened by an unexpected twist. When he declared that the bones must be immediately transferred to the museum for study, the farmer categorically opposed it.
