Seven years after an archaeological excavation found a 50,000-year-old mammoth skull near Srinagar, the fossil with its large tusk has gone missing.

“The mammoth skull has been stolen,” said Prof Abdul Majeed, who first found the fossil during an excavation in 2000. “I was shocked when I visited the site today. Both the skull and the tusk are missing. I fear it has been smuggled out to be sold in the international market,” he said.

The find had attracted global attention and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) termed it a “revolutionary discovery in south Asia” that was “as important as the African finds made by the Leakeys”.

The fossil disappeared from the tin shed in which it was kept all these years near the excavation site at Galandar on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. The shed was constructed by the Kashmir University, as the government here failed to find a suitable place to preserve it. The precious find was soon forsaken with not even a guard in charge.

The age of the fossil was estimated to be between 50,000 and 16 lakh years, said Prof Majeed, who teaches geology at Government Degree College at Sopore. “The find was unparalleled in Kashmir and would have provided vital clues to the origin of human life in the region,” he said.

Soon after the discovery, the ASI offered help to Kashmir University in taking care of the skull and studying it. “It is indeed a revolutionary discovery in South Asia, probably as important as the African finds made by the Leakeys,” wrote Komal Anand, then director general of ASI. “We, therefore, hold that ASI and the Department of Geology of the University of Kashmir may collaborate.”

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