2.6-million-year-old ‘priceless’ fossil on sale for just Rs 4500

2.6-million-year-old ‘priceless’ fossil on sale for just Rs 4500

MASOL: Fossils dating back millions of years, rare discoveries for researchers, are on sale for a few thousand rupees at Masol, a small village in Punjab about 18-km from Chandigarh.

TOI recently bought a skull of a 'hemibos', a 2.6-million-year-old predecessor of the present-day wild water buffalo, for just Rs 4,500 from a family in Masol, following reports that fossilised rocks found near the village were being illegally sold for a prices as low as Rs 150.

Last year, a paper in a French journal, Comptes Rendus, claimed that cut marks on fossilised bones found in Masol were a proof of Hominin (early man) activities dating back 2.6 million years, and researchers could take years to find an entire skull as such fossils break due to the movement of tectonic plates.

Rajeev Patnaik, an expert in vertebrate palaeontology at Punjab University's geology department, said the skull, with its upper jaw still intact, was priceless because there are only 14 of its kind in the world. Patnaik said it was sheer luck to find a fossil like the one TOI had bought from the village.

"In Chandigarh, we have three in our department's museum and one at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Sector 10. It is scientifically priceless," Patnaik said. Absence of a law to protect the fossils is a cause of concern, he added.

In January 2016, findings from the forests of Masol had caught the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former French President Francois Hollande during their visit to Chandigarh. They had visited an exhibition of fossils at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh.

The person who had helped strike the deal with the family in Masol village, claimed that he knew where to look for such finds. He, however, refused to take TOI to the spot.

"Foreigners have been coming here for years to collect or buy 'maal' (valuables). Not everything here is sold for Rs 150," he said. "Sastey waaley kissi kamm dey nahi (The cheaper ones are of no use)."

For some villagers in Masol, which doesn't have road links and drinking water, selling of the fossils is a way of making money. "My child treks 12km in a forest to go to study in Pinjore. When I have the means to make extra money and there is no law that can stop me, why shouldn't I sell these fossils," said the Masol villager who sold the skull to TOI.