China tries farmers for fighting over fossils

Seven farmers from central China face trial for fighting officials who tried to take control of a lucrative lode of dinosaur fossils, state media reported on Wednesday.

The seven were accused of mobilizing residents of Shaping Village in Henan province to trash a police vehicle and fight officials after authorities tried to seize the fossils, the official China court news Web site reported.

After the big dinosaur bones were discovered in March 2006, the government told the farmers to hand over any rare and valuable fossils they had already hidden away.