A Chinese villager unearthed an ivory fossil in north China's Shanxi Province, which was verified by archeologists to be at least one million years old.

The milk-white fossilized tusk is nearly 27 centimeters long and 22 centimeters in diameter in the thickest part and 12 centimeters in diameter in the thinnest part.

The fossil was unearthed by a villager surnamed Xue in Hehe Village in Jishan County in the province, when he was digging sand by a river. He immediately contacted the local relic protection bureau about his findings.

Archeologists said that the fossil was integrated. It has been kept in preservation by local relic protection authorities.

There were several findings of ivory fossils in the region. The oldest ivory fossils previously spotted in the province was 450,000 years old.

Ancient ivory fossils were previously discovered in north China's Tianjin municipality and Hebei Province, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the northwest. But ivory fossils of more than one million years old were rarely seen.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2005)