Petrous bone found at Narmeta excavation site

March 29, 2017 12:00 am | Updated 04:16 am IST - NARMETA

‘It holds genomic details of the megalithic period’

CCMB scientist Niraj Rai at the excavation site in Narmeta in Nanganoor mandalMohd Arif

CCMB scientist Niraj Rai at the excavation site in Narmeta in Nanganoor mandalMohd Arif

In a move that may give scope for exploring the genomics of the people who lived in megalithic period, archaeologists were able to excavate petrous bone of an adolescent at a burial site located here in Nanganoor mandal.

Niraj Rai, a senior scientist of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) visited the excavation taking place here for the past one month and interacted with the staff of Archaeology Department.

He enquired about the type of material found at the megalithic site and what their expectations are.

Mr. Niraj Rai was happy on Tuesday as he was able to get the petrous bone (fragment of skull bone) at 1.98 metre depth at layer three. “This will be useful as the density of DNA will be 150 times higher comparing with other parts of the human body,” Mr. Neeraj told the officials of the archaeology department.

More promising

While in one site bones of humans were found, the main digging site was more promising with some pottery and some iron instruments. Pagadam Nagaraju, Assistant Director, A. Bhanu Murthy, a retired senior employee of the department, D. Bujji, Technical Assistant and B. Saidulu, archaeology assistant have been working at the field.

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