BOMMAYARPALAYAM HUMAN FOSSIL : 1.66 LAKH YEARS OLD :SCIENTISTS

Human fossil from TN dates to 1.66 lakh years
Sunday, 26 September , 2004, 17:06
Thiruvananthapuram: The age of the human baby fossil, found three years back from Odai in Bommayarpalayam in Tamil Nadu, has been dated to 1.66 lakh years, making it the second oldest human fossil from India and the first fossil found within ferricrete from anywhere. The absolute date was recently worked out by Dr M P Chougaonkar of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre through desimetry analysis of thorium, uranimum and potassium removed from the ferricrete that covered the fossilised baby skull found from Odai. The age clearly showed that in the human evolutionary stage Laterite Baby from Odai belonged to Homo sapiens (archaic) of the Middle Pleistocene period, Prof P Rajendran, archaeologist in Kerala University, who discovered the fossil in 2001, said. "The dating not only proves the age of the human fossil, but also the age of ferricretisation -- the process of clay changing into laterite--of the fluvial deposit on the East coast of India. It represents the stage between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens or modern man," Dr Rajendran, also a UGC research scientist, said. The oldest human fossil was found from Hathanora in the Naramada river bed in Madhya Pradesh in 1982 by Sonakia of Geological Survey of India, Rajendran said.