65 million-year-old dinosaur eggs are unearthed in Maharashtra
THE prehistoric has taken precedence near Anandwan, the leprosy centre in Warora, Maharashtra, where Baba Amte and his workers are busy creating history. Thousands of fossilised dinosaur eggs have been found by paleontologist, Dr G.L. Badam of Deccan College, Pune, and his team in Pisdura, a village about 10 km north of Anandwan. Also found were bone fragments, shells and faecal matter. This, says Dr Badam, "has been a nesting site for the sauropod dinosaur".
Oval, about 13 cm long and five times the size of hen eggs, these endless rows of eggs are being dated back 65 million years. The age represents the end of the cretaceous era, the geological period just before the earliest mammal appeared on the scene when hundreds of species, including dinosaurs, suddenly became extinct.
While locals worship their sacred stones and children play with them oblivious of their significance, the region is proving to be a paleontologists delight. The different layers of soil have thrown up antiquities belonging to historic periods as well. And provides evidence of prehistoric life on Earth ranging from 65 million years back to as recent as 30,000 years ago.
The Deccan College was intimated by the people at Anandwan who while ploughing, unearthed fossilised remains of cattle, extinct species of dogs as well as of the mammoth, the ancestor of the elephant. The mammoth is estimated to be about two million years old belonging to the period just before Man appeared.
The dinosaur eggs found are smaller than others found at other nesting sites in India like the one found in Balasinor in Gujarat. Paleontologists are attributing the possibility of an avian metamorphism which may have occurred in the last stages of dinosaur survival. This seems to indicate that these are the youngest eggs found till now. The site gains further significance as it is probably one of the last regions to have har-boured dinosaurs, before they gave way to the domination of mammals and Man.
Several theories exist about the reason for the dinosaurs extinction: carnivorous dinosaurs dying out as the herbivores on whom they preyed disappeared, volcanic activity during the cretaceous period, geological changes which led to reduction of land masses and impact of comets and asteroids among others. The fossilised egg samples from Pisdura suggest that the dinosaurs in this region died out due to volcanic activity, typical of the cretaceous period. The embryos in eggs in developmental stages are believed to have undergon ehormonal imbalances, suffocation and dehydration caused by changes in the environment leading to their eventual desiccation. The patho-logically thin shells of the eggs recovered from the site in Maharastra support these projections.
These dinosaur fossils are similar to ones found in Brazil, Madagascar and Patagonia and endorse the theory that the Indian peninsula was a part of the single huge mass of land, referred to as Gondwana, which stretched from Africa to Australia in those times. According to Dr Badam, this suggests landbridges in the existing Indian and Atlantic Oceans or the persistence of large remnants of the old Gondwana continent. The dinosaurs generally nested in a fresh water environment, close to rivers or their estuaries. The findings in Pisdura, however, have revealed the coexistence of some marine fish too.
Also discovered are Stone Age tools belonging to Early Man dated about 70,000 years back. The material suggests that this may have been a work site in the past. Says Dr Badam: "We now hope to know better the activity areas and the biological environment of Early Man". Remnants of historic times dated back to just a few hundred years like pottery, terracota figurines, beads, coins, inscriptions, animal bones have also been unearthed.
To preserve these invaluable finds, Dr Amte is building a museum of Natural History at the location with help from Dr Badam. While Dr Badams interest lies in the Paleolithic age, this finding has altered his plans considerably. And his energies are now being realigned in the direction of the dinosaur site. Its difficult, after all, for Man to bypass a chance meeting with the rulers of another era.