CHIMALACATLAN -When 10 peasant farmers walked into an "enchanted cave" in central Mexico last month, they simply planned to channel the waters from a natural spring to their village.
Instead, they walked out with some huge bones that scientists say are almost certainly those of at least one mammoth, the Ice Age behemoth that roamed the region thousands of years ago.
The mammoth was a huge, elephant-like creature, with hairy skin and long, upwardly curving tusks. Remains have been found in North America, Europe and Asia.
The farmers were digging inside the cave on a heavily wooded steep mountain slope above their village when they came across the mammoth remains about 2m below the surface.
They have since excavated at least 40 pieces, ranging from huge femur bones to teeth.
The discovery has created a stir in the normally sleepy village of Chimalacatlan in the state of Morelos, and local residents insist they have no intention of giving up the bones to outside authorities.
"We want to put them in a museum here," said Alfredo Barba, a local official.
He was among the farmers who made the find, and he said they were not sure what part of the body most of the bones came from.
Barba said villagers were sure many more bones were still buried under dirt inside what they have long called the "enchanted cave," but that the excavation work was halted until a decision was made on what to do with the find.
This week, local residents laid out the bones on a concrete bench in the centre of Chimalacatlan, discussing the find and reports that at least one mammoth skull was found in the area many years ago and sold to a museum.
"Before, people came from outside, and people sold them [the pieces]. We are not going to sell them now," said Aureliano Flores, who carried a femur into the village centre over his shoulders. "We are keeping them for a museum."
One young boy opened up a cardboard box and took out a number of small bones.
"What do you think this is, boys?" he said, holding up one bone to a group of friends. "It's a strange one, no?"
At first, the farmers thought the bones might belong to dinosaurs, but that notion was quickly dispelled by experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"They are definitely not dinosaur bones. It is much more likely that they are mammoth bones because other remains were found in the same region more than two decades ago," Teresita Loera, a senior official from the historical institute in Morelos state, told the Reforma newspaper this week.
Chimalacatlan is on the edge of the Sierra de Huautla ecological reserve, but wells in the area are often dry between October and May, so local farmers look to channel water from natural springs.
