Desi Stones and Bones

It was a tooth of a creature that existed more than 10 million years ago. A sea dragon. This was a canine of an aquatic reptile like no other. Ichthyosaurs. From the Greek work Ichthys for fish and saurus for lizard. Fish lizard. Its search had baited Delhi-based scientist Guntupalli Veera Raghava Prasad to a fossil site in in south India.

More than 50 million years ago, dinosaurs pirouetted to extinction. And other goliaths waltzed to centrestage.

More than 50 million years ago, a deer-like, hoofed herbivore wandered along the banks of a river near the ancient Tethys sea. What would it evolve into?

About 70 million years ago, a limbless reptile crunched into dinosaur eggs to slurp out its contents, which included a squirming hatchling. But this beanfest collapsed under a wet blanket of mud.

Early last year, Jinu Koshy, a 42-year-old archaeologist made his first trip to a desolate mesa located in the south-Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. A bird’s eye view of an online map showed a rumpled terrain, very similar to a spot nearby that Jinu had helped excavate. Now, that archaeological dig had happened more than a decade ago. But it had unwrapped some of south India’s oldest rock art. Rock art on the walls of cave shelters. Basically, prime studio pads for prehistoric man. And so, since the landscapes bore close resemblances, Jinu was kind of sure that this site too could have housed doodling hunter gatherers.

This is a narrative about archaeologists rewriting dates of early human migration to India, stone-tool butcherers and a deerskin-clad hunter

Vishal Verma is a high school physics teacher in central India who moonlights as a fossil hunter. Will he find the dinosaur eggs that he is looking for in his region?

Pranay Lal is the author of a book titled Indica -- A deep natural history of the Indian subcontinent. In this interview he talks about his early life, mentors who untiringly answered his queries on India's natural history and his wishlist.