STOCKTON, Calif. -- Sixty-two feet below downtown Stockton Friday, a wooly mammoth decided to rise up out of history. That is, with the help of a drilling machine. And, it was only a few bones.

But it was enough for scientists to declare the remains those of a mammoth, or perhaps those of its smaller cousin, the mastodon.

Drill operator Dave Lamont was at the controls at the time. “Everyone was really excited, because when the big femurs came up we knew that it was nothing normal," he said. "It was something very big."

A paleontologist will visit the site Monday to confirm the species. Scientists here said the bones that now fill two large trash cans have been buried for 10-20 thousand years.

Gabe Karam is the San Joaquin County project manager overseeing construction of what will be a new county administration building.

"I’ve been an engineer for 30 years,” he said, “and this is the first time I’ve experienced something like this. Wow!"

Karam said that construction was halted for several hours when the bones were found.

"I called the county coroner," he said. "He was on site within half an hour, examined the bones, and determined they were not human. That’s standard procedure."

Archeologist Paul Hampson cleared work to resume once the bones had been collected.

"It's pretty neat," he said. "A find that is unusual for this area -- the first one I know of in Stockton."

Thousands of wooly mammoths wandered North America from Alaska to Mexico during the Ice Age. They stood ten feet tall, weighed 6-8 tons and had huge tusks, some as long as 16 feet. Scientists believe human hunting, climate change and disease led to the mammoth’s extinction about ten thousand years ago.

The bones -- from the back end of the animal -- will be sent to U.C. Berkeley for study, but excavating the rest of the animal will cost millions of dollars.

In the meantime, Lamont will be drilling more foundations, and he hopes to get lucky once again.