At the beginning of this year, Mr. Ren, a citizen of Changchun
City in northeast China's Jilin Province, found an extraordinary
stone while working in a sandpit near Dong'antun. His workmates
thought that it was just an ordinary stone and suggested throwing
it away. However, Ren was convinced that it was a fossilized
bone.
The stone is about the size of a man's palm and it was cracked
in two places. "At first, when I saw the lower part of the stone, I
thought that there should be an upper part judging from the
fracture surface. So I searched around and surprisingly found the
upper part. I thought it was a fossilized bone according to the
texture of the fracture," Ren said.
Ren has a great interest in stone since childhood. He always
takes interesting stones home.
On December 19, a journalist from the East Asia Economy and
Trade News and Mr. Ren together with the stone went to visit
Xing Ruizhong, Chairman of the Changchun Strange Stone Appreciation
and Research Association, and also an expert from the Northern
China Stone Culture. After careful observation, Xing told the
journalist that judging from the glazed part of the upper section,
the stone was a fossilized skull of a mammoth. It still has
important value in scientific research though it has been badly
eroded by the wind, affecting its market value.
According to Xing, one of several species of huge, hairy,
elephantine creatures, the now extinct mammoth, roamed the earth
until as recently as 10,000 years ago. Though bone fossils of
mammoths have been discovered in northeast China before, this is
the first time that a skull fossil has been found.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua, December 20, 2007)