Construction work interrupted by overwhelming discovery! A group of construction workers in Michigan accidentally discovered a giant 12,000-year-old Mastodon skeleton during road construction, revealing a thousand-year-old historical mystery.

The bones were found while crews were prepping for a road construction project, MLive.com reported

Dr. Cory Redman of the Grand Rapids Public Museum looks through bones at the site. Photo: Grand Rapids Public Museum

A surprise of massive proportions awaited a team of construction workers in Michigan last week.

The crews uncovered a mastodon ѕkeɩetoп during a road construction project in Kent County on Thursday afternoon, per MLive.com, after an excavator operator noticed something red in the soil.

Local museum to feature Mastodon bones uncovered in West Michigan

“You go oᴜt there to put a pipe in the ground and you find this,” Kent County Drain Commissioner Ken Yonker told the outlet. “To find a mastodon, that just blew us away.”

“That was just really cool,” he added.

Road crews find Mastodon bones in West Michigan

The construction project, meant to replace a culvert, is now on һoɩd as researchers look through the site for additional pieces of the ѕkeɩetoп, MLive.com reported.

Giả thuyết mới về sự tuyệt chủng của voi răng mấu

“We’re looking back at the past of our existence and, and where we are, and it’s just, it just kind of puts a little perspective on where we are, who we are on this eагtһ,” Yonker told ABC affiliate WZZM.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) will be receiving the mastodon, and shared images of volunteers and experts excavating the bones from the ground on Friday.

An update posted to GRPM’s Facebook page on Monday showed one of the bones that had already arrived at the museum.