Thursday, November 29, 2007

China's Palaeo-Black Market

National Geographic News has an interesting article on trouble a-brewin' with China's new "peasant palaeontologists",
"Armed with only tractors and farm tools, Chinese peasants recently attacked police who had come to seize dinosaur bones the farmers had found. The clash called attention to the rise of a new type of dinosaur hunter in China's fossil-rich countryside: the "peasant paleontologist."

The rebellion also set in motion the first court test of a 2006 Chinese law banning "unauthorized" excavation, possession, sale, and export of dinosaur fossils. Offenders are subject to lengthy prison terms or, in serious cases, the death penalty."