Word: fossilizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...shelter to the first Muslims in 615 A.D. after they were thrown out of Saudi Arabia as heretics - as a result, in the Koran, Mohammed tells all Muslims that they must respect and protect Ethiopia. The mountainous north African nation is also a fount of humanity. This month the fossilized remains of Lucy, one of our earliest ancestors, left Ethiopia after 3.18 million years for a six-year tour of the U.S., while in July in the Middle Awash River valley, archaeologists discovered another fossil of an even earlier man, which they dated at between 5.2 million and 5.8 million...
...Most fossils find their way to Ancient Street, the pedestrian boulevard that, despite its name, opened only last year, boasting over 60 stores that make it by far the biggest commercial fossil market in the world. There's a noticeable hierarchy here, with the newly minted dealers competing with each other, as well as peddlers of gaudy flowers and pirated books, out on the street. More established dealers set up booths in a crowded three-story building. Only the shrewdest, like Zhang, can afford the stand-alone storefronts...
...Ancient Street is for the casual fossil buyer, of course; Chinese moguls and Western collectors head instead for dealers like Wang Facai (literally meaning "fortune"), whose store called Rare Stones, carries no precious jewels, just some dusty Ming vases (likely fakes) and cheap fish fossils scattered on the shelves. The bulky Wang, in a muscle T-shirt, glances around before beckoning me into one of two back rooms. From a secret closet behind a mirror, he pulls out a slab of rock which contains the profile of a half bird, half dinosaur, Confuciusornis sanctus, whose discovery in 1994 helped scientists...
...Even scientists are not above turning to Chaoyang's markets in the interests of science. Xu Xing, a paleontologist who has discovered more dinosaur species than anyone in history, says several of his finds came from such dealers. "I don't feel good when I buy fossils, so I'm trying to step away from this market," he says. Although sales of dinosaurs are strictly illegal, local officials tend to look the other way. "The middlemen and authorities are in bed together," says Zhang Wanlian, a retired reporter for the Chaoyang Daily, who has investigated the local fossil trade...
...fossil collecting becomes the next big thing for China's nouveaux riches and even Hollywood leading men - Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage reportedly recently got into a bidding war over the remains of a $276,000 Asian T-rex - the paleontological paradise of Chaoyang is under threat. Farmers and dealers are hard at work disturbing potentially valuable sites in the race to find specimens to sell. In a cornfield outside of town, farmers have sliced open an entire hill. Layers of earth, each covering deposits millions of years old, protrude naked, leaving only broken slabs of rock. Along the road...