Two million years ago, towards the end phase of the Pleistocene Ice Age, when northwestern India had become a virtual deep freeze, our ancestor Homo erectus flocked the banks of the Narmada river. The find of the skull of the ancestor in 1982 from the Narmada valley in central India attracted the fossil enthusiasts and experts on ecology in search of clues to reconstruct the past ecology and environment.

Rich clutches of fossils from the area prove that life flourished there. Paleontologists make use of such places and carry out detailed studies to work out the causes of death of an organism. Like a post mortem conducted by the forensic scientists, the palaeontologists carry out Taphonomy ie science of death of an organism, it also helps in building a complete picture of the past ecology and environment, in which the organism lived and perished. One can also know if the organism died a natural death or became prey to another animal.

Moulishree Joshi of Department of Geology, Kumaon University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, played 'Sherlock Holmes' for a richly fossiliferous area of Madhya Pradesh between Jabalpur and Narsinghpur. She highlighted her work in a recent Colloquium held at Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany (BSIP) at Lucknow.

She chose to conduct taphonomy of fossils of rats found aplenty in this area. Moulishree tried to reconstruct the past ecological scenario of the area during the late Pleistocene chapter of the earth's history, some two million years ago.

"It seems that the area provided a favourable climate to the animals which had migrated from the northwest because of harsh climatic conditions during the glacial period of the early Pleistocene", says Moulishree.

A large number of fossil bones displayed tooth puncture marks thereby, confirming the hunch that they were brought there by a predator. Now, the hunt was on to identify the culprit. One of the major suspects was an owl. Because the articulated ends of the longer bones were broken; means a sharp beaked bird had devoured the rats. Owls are known to love rat's meat. Moreover fossil bones of owls recovered from nearby area also supported the contention. Some of the bones displayed corroded surface. Such corrosion indicates action of digestive juices. Avian digestive juices are quite acidic, thus strengthening the suspicion on owls.

But, all bones were not brought by the predators. Many of the bones with rounded edges and ends show long transportation under water. Some of them were transported and at times left exposed to atmospheric agencies. Such bones display solution cavities on the exposed surface. Deposition of iron in these cavities indicates a hot and humid climate. Thus despite cold of the Ice age there were pockets of warmth on our huge sub-continent.

The horde of fossil bones is a proof in itself that food was available in plenty and the climate was congenial.

May be after a million years a future palaeontologist discovers our bones and declares, the race perished due to overpopulation and want of water and nourishment!